


Resol’nare

by Theblindassassin12



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Resol’nare, This Is The Way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 19:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30110901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theblindassassin12/pseuds/Theblindassassin12
Summary: Mandalorian isn’t a race, it’s a creed. Since being rescued by the Mandalorians as a child, Din Djarin has sworn himself to The Way, adhering to the strict demands of Mandalorian culture and tradition. But when he breaks the creed, removing his helmet on his quest to deliver Grogu safely to the Jedi, he is left with more than the loneliness that the Child’s absence creates- he is left with questions about who he is and where he fits in Mandalorian society. And the acquisition of the Darksaber and the title of Mand’alor along with it? They only offer more questions- ones that he needs to answer sooner rather than later.Elsewhere in the galaxy, Mandalorian Navina Harsa is on a quest of her own, one that she’s been working toward for the better part of her life; exacting revenge on those who betrayed her family, and ending the Mandalorian’s history of power struggles for good. When their paths cross, the two find that they have much more in common than The Way. Though their beliefs and priorities differ, they must trust one another if there is ever to be true balance- for the Mandalorians... or for the galaxy as a whole.*new chapters post every Sunday*
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Character(s), Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s), Mando / OC
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What has the Mand’alor been up to since saying goodbye to the kid? And what is he planning to do next?

_Trask_

The landing had gone much more smoothly than the last time he’d visited the estuary moon, the ship’s gear easily touching down on one of the stilted platforms instead of plunging into the brackish water beneath it. His new ship, the _Promise_ , though purchased second hand, was in much better shape than the _Razor Crest_ had been when he’d made the manual splashdown. It was faster and more recently modified, all systems intact and the entire ship meticulously serviced by Peli’s droids not two weeks ago. The _Promise_ was a superior ship in every measurable way. But it wasn’t home yet, not the same way that the _Razor Crest_ was. He had to stop himself from glancing back over his right shoulder as he finished flipping switches to shut down the engines. It wouldn’t be home until that seat was occupied again, and there was no telling when that might be. 

He closed his eyes, feeling a sudden tug in the center of his chest. _Don’t._ The Mandalorian shook thoughts of large round eyes and a small, three-fingered hand from his mind, forcing himself to focus on his current mission. The engines whirred to a stop as he stood, exiting the cockpit without dropping his eyes to the vacant chair. With the press of a button the door slid shut behind him, and he headed down the steel ladder into the gunship’s main hull. 

The sound of his bootsoles making contact with the metallic floor of the modified single-pilot Auzituck echoed through the cavernous space. Passing the door that led to his bunk, he pressed another button before entering a series of coded digits into a keypad. The wall panel next to his rarely used sleeping quarters opened to reveal a weapons locker, the contents of which were still severely lacking. He’d done what he could to replenish his stock of blasters and rifles, but his current collection was nothing compared to the armory he lost when the _Razor Crest_ was destroyed. _It won’t matter for this one._ He reached in, grabbing a small blaster and the beskar spear he’d left Calodan with, choosing to forgo adding any grenades or extra ammunition to his bandolier. 

Dropping his chin, he let his eyes fall to the silver, cylindrical hilt of the Darksaber where it hung on its pegs. He hadn’t wielded it since he’d won it from Moff Gideon. He reached tentatively for it, but paused just before his fingers closed around the grip. Frowning behind the visor of his helmet, he pulled his hand away, leaving the sword where it was. The weapon- and more so what it symbolized- still made him uncomfortable. _Mand’alor_ . He knew that the right to rule was meant to be an honor, a privilege and a duty that many Mandalorians would take up gladly. But all he saw when he looked at it was the disappointed defeat in Bo-Katan’s eyes when he returned with Gideon in binders and the Darksaber in his hand. He saw that defeat turn sour as she turned down his offer of the blade to her. When he looked at the weapon that he was meant to rule Mandalore with, he only felt unease and unbalance. He tore his eyes from it before he could think about the glowing obsidian blade and how it looked extended menacingly over Grogu’s head. _I don’t need it for this_ . Shutting the weapons locker, he entered the same code that he used to open it, the lock engaging with a loud click. _And it’s safer here_. 

Armed with likely more than he’d need for the mission he was currently on, he turned for the door and lowered the ramp to disembark. He’d been traveling through the Outer Rim Territories, following a trail of beskar through the black market. His last stop on Mon Cala had garnered him several heavy ingots of the dark metal, as well as some stolen pieces of Mandalorian forged armor that a Quarren called Barlag was trying to move for absurd prices. _And he would have gotten them, too._ The Mandalorian knew that those who could afford it wouldn’t blink before forking over any number of credits to have their hands on the most indestructible, rare and valuable material in the galaxy. But it wasn’t a commodity, and it didn’t belong in the hands of back alley criminals or imperial holdouts. _It belongs with me. With my people_. It filled him with a quiet rage that helped to fill the hole that the empty seat in the cockpit left, helped to make him forget about the questions he had surrounding the Darksaber and his title as Mand’alor. 

Tossing a satchel of Calamari Flan to the waiting dockhand to cover the cost of refueling his ship, he strapped the spear to his back and made his way through the port. The streets were full of merchants and traders. Some were legitimate purveyors and transporters of goods, though most operated illegally, at least in part. Trask’s location, far from the Core Worlds, and its relatively small population, meant that it flew so far under the New Republic’s radar that the black market trade was able to flourish almost completely uninhibited. Typically, though, any riff raff rounded up on Trask was collected by bounty hunters hired to track down thieves and debtors, not by the New Republic’s marshals. The Guild often sent its newer, less experienced members on jobs that would bring them there, as the targets were usually low risk. They were considered easy money, though not enough to peak the interest of the higher ranked hunters, so it had been almost a decade since the Mandalorian had been to Trask on Guild business. Keeping his eyes forward, he passed the inn where he’d gotten the information that had led him to Bo-Katan and the others, turning down a narrow alley. He found the entrance to the bar just where Barlag, after some light convincing, had told him it would be. 

The first half of the information on the stolen beskar proving true, he walked through the tattered green curtain that covered the doorway to see about the second half. According to his source, a smuggling ring led by a Quarren named Tirzeg was set to transport a large quantity of beskar shortly after nightfall, and word was that he was using the bar’s basement storage room to hold his contraband until it was time to meet up with his transport team. 

Barlag, who had given up a small stash of beskar ingots and three vambraces in varying states of disrepair after one of his cronies had fallen to the Mandalorian and two others had run off, had been all too willing to cooperate once he felt the spear’s sharp tip against his throat. So willing, in fact, that he’d even given up the location of the much larger smuggling ring on Trask. The Mandalorian knew that that _bonus_ was likely two sided and that the second he released him Barlag was likely to report back to Tirzeg, warning him of what was coming his way. _As long as I get there before he takes off_. He was more than confident that he’d have no trouble securing the beskar, and when he touched down on Trask with several hours to spare before nightfall he knew that it would only come down to one thing: Would Tirzeg be as cooperative as Barlag had been and give up the beskar, or would it need to be taken from him? 

A cursory scan of the dimly lit room was all it took for him to mark his target. Almost all of the square wooden tables and circular booths were full, but hunting and tracking were second nature to him whether he had a fob or not. All of his years with the Guild had taught him what cues and tells to look for. He could identify smugglers in his sleep. _Back left table_ .Sidestepping around a man locked in drunken conversation with two Mon Calamari dockhands, he matched Barlag’s description with the tall yellow-beige skinned Quarren positioned with his back to the wall and the two largest of his crew on either side of him like bodyguards. There were six total, by his count, nothing he couldn’t handle. Engaging the thermal scanner on his helmet’s visor, he followed a set of footsteps from the booth that led to a door tucked in the corner of the room. _That must be where they’re keeping it_. Each table that he passed grew quiet, the patrons looking up at him timidly, hoping it wasn’t them that he had come for. He was sure that at least three of them had bounties out on their heads. But there was only one that he was interested in. 

“Tirzeg,” he called the name when he was a few steps away, drawing the eyes of the rest of the table’s occupants, the short one at the end of the booth closest to where the Mandalorian stood getting to his feet with a snarl. Ignoring the display of aggression, he didn’t break his stride and continued over to the booth. 

“So.” The Quarren didn’t stand as he spoke, simply glanced up over the top of the cards in his hand as the Mandalorian came to a stop in front of his booth. “You must be the Mando that Barlag warned me about.” _That’s right._ One long facial tentacle rose upwards to pluck a card from the fan of them that he held in front of his face, reshuffling it and gesturing casually with his free hand. The short, snarling goon sat back down and Tirzeg thought about his play for a few more seconds before laying a pair of cards boasting matching red symbols on top of the pile. That done, he finally deemed the conversation at hand worthy of setting his remaining cards face down beside the large stack of coins, folding his arms over the top of his cache. 

“If you heard I was coming,” he tilted his head, arms still hanging loosely at his sides. “Then you know why I’m here.” He spoke in an even, non-threatening tone despite the way that Tirzeg’s crew were clutching the grips and hilts of their weapons. _Let them try it_.

The Quarren just grinned, the two tentacles closest to his lips curling inwards. “I’ll take a guess. You’re here for the beskar.” He laughed then, the sound more of a gutteral choking sound than anything denoting actual joy, the rest of his men joining in.

“I am,” the Mandalorian answered. _And I’m going to be leaving with it_.

“And I suppose you think I should just, what?” Tirzeg leaned over his arms, the squid-like appendages of his chin knocking over a small stack of Imperial Credit coins and sending them sliding towards the cards in the middle of the table. “ _Give_ it to you? Out of the kindness of my heart?” 

Another round of raucous laughter rose from the table, but the Mandalorian remained calm, giving a shrug as Tirzeg took a long swig from his drink. “The beskar belongs with the Mandalorians, it is my right to reclaim it. Your _kindness_ has nothing to do with it.” 

Tirzeg stood abruptly, hands flat on the table. “Is that so?” _It is._ His eyes narrowed causing the wrinkled bags beneath them to gather. “And I suppose you also think that it’s going to be as easy to shake me down as it was with Barlag.” He leaned closer, the rest of the oafish brutes that were seated in his booth starting to get to their feet too. “That right, Mando?” 

“I was hoping that you would have more sense than your friend.” He could feel the floorboards shift beneath his boots as two more of Tirzeg’s goons stepped up behind him. The rest of the bar had fallen silent, the patrons quickly picking up on the tension brewing between the Mandalorian and the Quarren and either heading for the exits or else watching closely and cautiously. 

“ _Friend_ ,” Tirzeg spat the word, several of his men scowling as he did. “That coward is no friend of mine.” The others all grunted in agreement, one banging the long handle of his spear into the floor for emphasis. Tirzeg sat down then, reclining into the backrest and crossing his arms over his chest. “But you know what _is_ mine?” His eyes widened, that greedy grin pulling at his mouth again. “All that _shiny_ beskar.” 

Behind the visor that hid his face the Mandalorian’s brown eyes flashed. _Enough_ . “You can either give it to me, or I _will_ take it from you.” Now it was a threat, one he fully intended to carry out, but he had still not reached for his own weapon. 

“Oh, I’m not gonna give it to you. I’m gonna sell it to a smith. And it’s gonna make me a shiny _fortune_.” 

He sighed. “Wrong choice.” 

Before any of Tirzeg’s men could strike, the Mandalorian reached for the blaster at his belt, the dusty overhead light reflecting off of his armor in a blinding flash. The _zap_ of the shot was enough encouragement for the rest of the patrons of the bar to scramble over one another for the exits, emptying the room as the being he shot dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. 

“Stop him!” Tirzeg howled, slamming the table and sending cards, coins and glassware flying. Two more of his accomplices launched themselves into the fray. 

The Mandalorian ducked the wild swing of the Quraren in front of him, the blow landing on the jaw of the attacker behind him. Grabbing and pulling at the striker’s ankle, he stood to upend the attacker dropping him _hard_ onto his head. _Two down_. Blaster still in hand from the first shot, he spun to take out the Quarren who had caught the punch meant for him. But he was blocked, his enemy reaching with one hand to push his blaster out of range, the other jabbing a short spear in his direction. 

Dodging it with ease, the Mandalorian pulled the spear off of his own back to counter the attack in a clanging clash of steel. Re-holstering his blaster once his adversary had released it, he gripped the beskar spear with both hands and drove the Quarren back into the wall, pressing the staff to the being’s throat. Without looking away from his current opponent, he brought one knee up and drove it back behind himself to plant the sole of his boot squarely in the chest of the fourth attacker, driving him through a neighboring table in a splintering crash of wood and limbs.. 

Tirzeg continued howling for his crew to fight back, but by the time the Mandalorian had let go of the goon he had pinned against the bricks, there was just one Quarren left standing next to the lead smuggler. Eyes wide and hands and tentacles quivering nervously, he swallowed and blinked at Tirzeg as the Mandalorian wheeled on the last two still on their feet. “Get him!” Tirzag spat at his last hold out, gesturing wildly as his tentacles splayed out in anger. 

The Mandalorian took another step, spear still extended, but just as he went to lunge the last of Tirzeg’s goon’s thought better of the situation, dropping his weapon and taking off for the exit. “No! Come back here! Come-” 

But despite Tirzeg’s calls, he was left alone, the sharp edge of the spear looming ever closer to his throat as the Mandalorian’s free hand closed around the Quarren’s bicep to keep him from slinking away. _Just like Barlag_. “The beskar,” the modulator in his helmet did little to cover the small growl in his voice. “Hand it over.” 

Suddenly far less sure of himself and infinitely less brave, Tirzeg sputtered, shrinking away from the blade. “A-alright, I… you…” He pointed one shaking hand at the door that the Mandalorian had correctly guessed was the entrance to the basement storage room. “You can take it just...just let me-” 

Not waiting for the end of the plea, he dropped Tirzeg roughly back into the booth and stepped over the legs of one of the fallen smugglers. “Should have done things my way, would have been-.” 

“Fool.” The overconfident tone crept back into the Quarren’s voice and the Mandalorian froze as Tirzeg grabbed a discarded blaster from the heap of his men and pointed it straight at his back. “All you did was bolster my share of the profit.” He scoffed, surveying the injured and otherwise incapacitated remnants of his crew. “So, I guess, in a way, I should be thanking you, Mand-” 

With a sigh, he simultaneously spun and drew his blaster, pulling the trigger to drop Tirzeg before he could finish his sentence. Whipping the pistol back into place on his belt and stowing the spear on his back once more, he turned his head so that his chin was parallel to his shoulder. “Should have done things my way. Would have been faster.” The energetic hum of the blaster’s single shot dissipated into the silent, dusty air of the vacant room as he descended the basement stairs. 

It had been a good haul, no matter how thinking about it in that manner made him feel. Securing roughly three times the amount of pure beskar that he’d earned for the bounty on Grogu, he tried only to think of how greatly it would benefit his people. _This is the Way_. He tried not to think about the origin of that metal, and how it had been stripped from it’s former wearer’s bodies. Carrying three full camtonos of heavy Mandalorian steel through the crowded streets of Trask’s darkened port, he reminded himself of his mission. 

The Armorer, along with a small handful of others and the Tribe’s few foundlings had survived what happened on Nevarro, and had reformed the Covert on Tatooine. Though he had yet to personally deliver the besker that he tracked down and reclaimed to The Armorer since he’d removed his helmet, instead passing it off to another Mandalorian, he was dedicated to getting it back into the hands of his people. He was dedicated to protecting them, defending and preserving their way of life, _his_ way of life, and that meant getting them what they needed to keep themselves safe. The men and women who gave their lives so that he could escape with Grogu- a foundling in his and therefore their protection- did so for a reason. And even if he’d broken one of the most integral rules of the Creed, he would never turn his back on those that refused to turn theirs on him. Even if what he’d done meant- 

_Dar’manda_. 

The word entered his mind and stopped him in his tracks. _No_ . Taking a breath, he kept walking, pushing the desolate, dishonorable connotations that came with that word and its actions from his thoughts. _Even if that’s… it’s not what I…_ He had no way to know what the others thought of him, or if they even knew that he had shown his face not once but twice in the presence of another living creature. All he knew was that while he harbored no regrets over _anything_ that he’d done for Grogu, and despite how much time had passed, he still wasn’t sure what to do with his beliefs. What _was_ he now? Still one of the Tribe? Or- 

_Mand’alor_.

There was _that_ word again. The one that carried responsibilities and expectations that he didn’t even know existed let alone that he wanted hefted on his shoulders. _I can’t be both_. Leader? Unifier? How could he be those things for his people if he didn’t even know if he had a place within their ranks anymore? 

He tightened his grip on the two handles of the camtonos he carried, the third one strapped to his back, and forced himself to focus only on putting one foot in front of the other. He listened only to the sound of his footsteps making contact with the wet ground, concentrated on the physical weight of the beskar in his possession and not on the things he didn’t know how to control. Deliver it to Tatooine, put it in the right hands. Regroup, regather supplies, and look for his next lead. It wasn’t much, and it did little to help him answer the questions he was wrestling with, but it did buy him time away.

While time was in no short supply, seeming to fly by in large chunks some days, he knew one thing that was running thin; Bo-Katan’s patience. The Darksaber beyond her grasp, the only goal she was focused on now was retaking Mandalore by any means necessary. But taking back their planet would mean he would need to step fully into his role as the leader of the Mandalorian people. _How can I lead them if I don’t even know where I stand_? 

He sighed as his ship came into view in the port, realizing that he’d have to find a way to answer himself sooner rather than later. Tirzeg’s ring on Trask had been his last real lead on stolen beskar, so he knew that when he arrived back in Tatooine, it would be only a day or two before Bo-Katan and Koska returned from their mission as well, wanting to speak with him. Their task had been traveling the galaxy in search of other Mandalorians, hoping to rally them to fight for their rightful home and spreading the word that they were no longer lost or forgotten- that they had a Manda’lor to follow and a duty to fight. They’d made contact with two small coverts within the mid rim, as well with a few lone wanderers, but just like his leads on beskar, their information on where to find more of their kind was drying up quickly. He knew that soon he’d have no choice but to start planning the reclamation of Mandalore. 

Reaching the _Promise_ , he left his thoughts on land. He had paid for a full night at the dock, but as soon as he crossed the threshold he knew he wouldn’t be staying. _I need to keep moving. I should… I should_ get _back_. Setting one of the heavy cases down, he pressed the button to raise the door behind him. The yellow glow from the lamps in the port reflected off of the murky water to shine into the dark hull, and he watched the sliver of light shrink into nothing as the door sealed shut and he picked the container back up. 

The visor of his helmet automatically adjusted to the low light, and he crossed the space with three echoing steps. Next to the weapons locker was another small storage compartment that he opened, stowing the beskar inside. Disarming himself next, he hung the spear and blaster back in their places, closing the locker without even glancing at the Darksaber’s hilt. But even without paying it any extra attention, thoughts of the sword's crackling black blade crept in, and he wondered if it would ever feel right in his grip. No other weapon had ever given him such pause, and yet it was the one he was supposed to forge a fractured kingdom with. _But how?_

As soon as he asked the question he chased it away. _Not tonight_ . With a small shake of his head, he closed the locker and left the dim hull. Climbing into the cockpit, he kept his eyes straight ahead so that they wouldn’t fall to the empty seat behind him, and began punching in the coordinates for Tatooine. Lights blinked on all around him as the engines began to whir and hum, and he cleared the _Promise_ for takeoff, leaving Trask and heading for the stars and the solace that they provided him. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Navina Harsa has been on her own for a long time, and she has done whatever she’s needed to in order to survive. From time to time that means forsaking the teachings, The Way of her people. But there is one thing that she will never do, and that is forsake her family- even if they’re gone.

_Yavin 4_

Navina Harsa leaned against the window of the transport shuttle as the destination came into view. Clouds swirled in wispy white clusters, parting to reveal the marbled green and blue hues that the dense foliage and deep, clear water painted across the moon’s surface. Quiet gasps from the row behind her gave those passengers away as first time visitors to the remote jungle moon, the three young children chattering excitedly about all the things that their parents must have told them in the weeks leading up to their trip. Navina tried to put herself in their shoes, imagining what it would be like to see Yavin 4 for the first time all over again. But while the family of travellers was choosing this location for a vacation, her own reason for visiting was vastly different. And she had seen it many times. _It is beautiful, though_. 

As the shuttle neared the docking zone, the landscape and vegetation became more defined, and she could make out the massive ziggurat that poked up from the trees. Neither centuries of erosion, nor years of war and conflict had damaged the structures that still loomed like imposing stone giants over the land.

“You can see them from anywhere you are on the ground,” the man behind her was telling his children. “If you think they’re big now,” she glanced back in time to catch him tapping the youngest boy on the nose with the tip of his finger. “Just _wait_ until we get up close.” He curved his other arm around one of the older two, corralling the three of them close to the window. The children giggled excitedly, their parents exchanging warm smiles over their heads as they continued to buzz with questions and exclamations. 

Navina clamped her eyes shut and faced front, blinking them open again when she was sure she’d only see the back of the seat in front of her. She stared at the bright red material, a bittersweet ache opening in her chest. _Another year._ Her right hand came up to her throat, fingers digging beneath her dark gray shawl for the leather cord she wore around her neck. Sliding it between her thumb and index finger, she felt for the cool metal pendant, wrapping it in her palm. Squeezing until the pointed tusks of the carved mythosaur poked into her flesh, she closed her eyes once more, inhaling deeply through her nose. 

_Ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum, aliit._

She held her breath, letting that ache deepen for a few seconds as the three faces she would never forget appeared in her memory. Her mother’s sharp, shining eyes. The strength in her father’s calm smile. The little one, sound asleep and dreaming. _You never left, because I carry you with me_ . Exhaling slowly, she released her grip on the pendant, the ache receding like she knew it would, and she tucked it back beneath the cowl of her shawl. _Nothing can truly separate us._ Hand falling back to her lap, she turned to look out the window once more as the Star Commuter began its final descent towards the docking platforms. Bending down, she scooped up the strap of her shoulder bag and slung it across her body, the contents clanging together as she adjusted its weight and readied herself to disembark. 

An overhead speaker chimed before a cheerful pre-recorded voice rang out in the cabin. _“Welcome to Yavin 4. Please be sure that you have all of your belongings before departing the ship. Passengers traveling with droids may claim them at the station hub once we have touched down. We thank you for choosing to fly with us, and hope that you enjoy your stay.”_

There was further information regarding booking return passage from the moon, but Navina tuned it out. She wouldn’t be leaving Yavin 4 the same way that she arrived. _And if all goes according to plan I’ll never have to shuttle hop again_. Standing as the craft hovered closer to the platform, she reached for the handle above her head, using it to steady herself as the shuttle jerked into a parked position. Once the floor had stopped shuddering beneath her boots, and the children in the row behind her had all dramatically tumbled from their seats, Navina let go of the handle and pulled her hood up, tucking her long woven braid into it. As the cabin doors opened and the rest of the passengers fumbled to gather their belongings, she filed quickly past them and out into the thick, humid air. 

_Back again._

She wasn’t born here, so it technically wasn’t her _home_ . But it was the closest thing that she had to one. Her parents had been forced to leave Mandalore when she was only a few months old, settling on Concordia with the rest of the warrior clans. They lived there as a family for almost six years, but she had no real memory of it, couldn’t conjure more in her mind than what she’d been told. Even the memories of the night that they left were scarce and came to her in pieces- Purple light. Deep voices. The frenzied feeling of being followed. She remembered being tired, wanting to sleep, and _finally_ being able to, curling up with the baby and both of them drifting off quickly. Her parents explained as best as they could why they had had to leave, why they’d chosen to do they things that they had, and that explanation evolved to include more as she grew older. Even though she understood it, none of what they told her helped her to remember a home before they one they’d made there in the jungle caves of Yavin 4. 

They’d only spent four years here, completely secluded, just the four of them, but she could recall almost every second. Training with her parents, learning how to fight among the wide, flat leaves and vibrant flowers, splashing in the shallows at the base of the waterfall with the little one as her parents watched, humming rhymes for him as he cooed and laughed. She remembered running through the tunnels that connected their cavern to the network of others, her own voice echoing off the walls as she practiced words she’d heard her parents say: _morut'yc_ , _cyar'ika_ , _gra'tua._ The language was harsh, hard to learn and harder to speak, but she remembered the pride that she felt when her pronunciation was correct, or if she used a word or phrase properly. Her mother’s pewter eyes would flash and her father would nod. 

“This is the Way, Ina’ika,” her mother would always end every lesson, whether it was on weapons or traditions, with the words that every Mandalorian had heard thousands of times. 

_This is the Way._

But was she a _true_ Mandalorian? It was something she struggled with for years now. Her parents were gone. She had no clan, no tribe, no one to swear allegiance or loyalty or anything at all to. She’d given up on wearing her armor at all times when several dire situations had demanded that she do so, donning it only when necessary. _It’s not even_ **_my_ ** _armor_. Shrugging, she reached across her chest to pull the strap higher up on her shoulder. Had she grown up among other clans like her parents did, she would have been given her own armor as soon as she started training. When she reached a certain age she would have had the chance to swear the Creed and pledge herself to the Way of the Mandalore, and she would have been presented with her first custom piece of beskar armor- usually a helmet, sometimes a chestplate. Instead she carried her mother’s helmet, a pair of vambraces that she relieved a black market trader of, both too big for her wrists and needing extra padding so they wouldn’t slip when she used them, and a thin chestplate and shoulder pauldrons that had been salvaged from troopers during the Clone Wars and coated in several layers of durasteel. Beskar armor was impossible to come by, a Mandalorian armorer willing to smith something for a vagabond wearing mismatched steel even more difficult to find. She’d done her best to collect what she could. But it wasn’t beskar, aside from the helmet, and it wasn’t hers. 

She’d called herself a bounty hunter and a pilot, a courtesan, a killer, a thief, a smuggler, a spice runner and a stowaway, and she’d done so without pause because at some point she had been all of those things, often a few of them at once. She hesitated, though, when it came to calling herself Mandalorian. _I’ve broken almost every code there is to break._ As much as she tried to keep the traditions and beliefs that her parents had instilled in her, she knew that for every action she took to walk the Way, she had taken at least one in direct opposition with it. Not to mention the things that she had planned. _I doubt destroying the Darksaber counts as rallying to the cause of the Mand’alor_ . 

The stone path beneath her feet gave way to the springy jungle moss that covered the ground as she navigated her way through the station hub, the only place on Yavin 4 that could be considered remotely crowded, and she forced such violent thoughts from her mind. _Not here_ . For the last eighteen years, every move she made or job she took was influenced by one of three goals: survival, avenging the deaths of her family, or gaining information on the most infamous weapon in Mandalore’s history- specifically where she could find it, and how it could be obliterated. In her mind, it was just another thing that stood in the way of her people ever striking a balance, just another reason for Mandalorians to stay hidden or for clans to clash with one another instead of standing strong together. _It unified them once...but it didn’t last._ Any totem of power would attract corruption, she was sure of it, and that’s what the Darksaber was. 

She’d never seen it herself, only imagining the way that the onyx blade would crackle to life, slicing through the air in swaths of glowing obsidian light. The stories that her parents had told her, the scraps of information that she was able to collect through the years were all she had to build her idea of the weapon on. But she was certain that she’d know it when she saw it, even if her imagination was off base. She exited the hub, something her father had once said about the sword tumbling to the forefront of her memory. “ _All the misuse… all the times it fell into the wrong hands… all that_ **_fear_ ** _. There’s too much anger, too much hatred. The blade is imbued with it now. No one is strong enough to resist it anymore_ .” He didn’t believe that it could ever be used for good again- and certainly not if someone who’d been hardened and hollowed out by pain and loss and wrath were to lay claim on it. _Someone like-_

Shaking her head, Navina tried to clear her mind of the Darksaber and the emotions that it stirred in her. _That’s not why I’m here._ Her search for the blade, like her search for those who had betrayed her family, consumed most of her day to day thoughts and dictated almost every move she made or job she took. The leads she found determined where she travelled and how long she stayed there, chose her allies for her and taught her who her enemies were. But this trip was different. Her annual trip to Yavin 4 had nothing to do with her self-assigned mission. _This is for them_ . _..and for me._

Behind her, the family from the shuttle was heading towards the Ruins, where a small camp was set up with accommodations for vacationers. The children skipped and jumped, practically tripping over one another with excitement now that they had made it to their destination and no longer had to sit still on the shuttle. A sad but wistful smile curved up the side of her mouth as she cast one last glance at the parents and their young ones. _They’ll have fun here_. Turning away from them, she headed instead for the thick underbrush of the rainforest. Pushing a leaf the size of an astromech droid out of her way, she slipped between the branches and out of site. 

It was easier to push the Darksaber from her thoughts once the greenery had swallowed her, the air still and heavy with the heat, but fresh and clean and noticeably sweeter than it was closer to the hub’s docking platform. But before she could fully appreciate the comfort of being back in the only place she’d ever called home, a bright flash of light, this one amethyst, cut through her memory, blinding her. Suddenly, Navina recalled the face of the stranger that her family had encountered the night they left Concordia, his eyes calm but dark, the storm inside them contained but present. _“Our enemies think that we are enemies.”_ His deep voice came back to her easily, more clear than it ever had before. _“But perhaps more importantly, so do our allies.”_ The man had handed something small to her mother before passing a larger bundle to her father, and then within seconds he’d vanished.

The purple light flashed sharply in her mind once more, clearing the memory as quickly as it had assaulted her. Navina gasped, doubling over to brace her hands on her knees while she steadied her breathing again. _That was… It’s never been that clear before, I…_ She inhaled shakily, straightening up and removing the hood from her head. Her long black braid tumbled free, smaller blue braids woven throughout it, and she pushed a silvery blue strand back behind her ear. _I could never remember what he said, that man but now..._ She concentrated on his words, trying to etch them into her brain, desperate to find and keep any of the lost pieces of the puzzle she was trying to fit together. 

“Our enemies think that we are enemies.” Speaking the words out loud, she started walking once more, her steps sure and confident despite the twisted roots and thorny vines that poked up from the ground. Navina knew each rock and root of these parts like the back of her hand, no matter how much new growth there was between now and her last visit. Feet finding the route for her, she continued to focus on the memory. _He wasn’t...that man, he wasn’t a Mandalorian_ . That part seemed clear. _But then…_ She chewed her bottom lip and shifted the strap of her bag, her armor knocking together and hitting her hip as she hopped a fallen massassi trunk. _Then who was he?_

Narrowing her eyes, she dug out the pendant that she wore around her neck again, this time pulling it out from under her shawl. Since she was alone it was safe to reveal the ancient symbol without giving herself away. Opening her palm, she stared down at the shiny silver skull, the faceted gem at the heart of the piece shining through the Mythosaur’s carved eyes. Sometimes, when the light reflected off the gem that was encased within her mother’s necklace, it appeared to be a soft purple color. Here, on the forest floor where only small patches of filtered greenish sunlight made it through the canopy, the gem seemed colorless. She sighed, dropping the pendant and letting it bounce against her chest. _Who was he, and why am I remembering this now?_

Immediately, the same hopeful flicker in her heart that had woken her from a dream a few nights prior came back, stronger this time. _Maybe it means I’ll see them again… My father and_ -

“Well look what the loth-cat dragged in.” 

A voice from her left broke her from her wishful thinking. Grabbing for the blaster that was hidden beneath her shawl, she whipped it from the holster strapped to her upper thigh. In one swift spin she pointed her weapon in the direction of the speaker before the familiarity in his tone registered. _Wait, it’s-_

“Woah, woah, _woah_ there, Nav, take it easy, it’s just-” 

“ _Firo_ !” She lowered her weapon, sliding it back into its holster as she sighed heavily. “Are you kriffing _crazy_ ? I could have _shot_ you!” 

“So,” Her friend’s green-gold eyes brightened, a smirk pulling his mouth crookedly up the side of one bearded cheek as he ignored her half-sincere outrage. “You didn’t _know_ I was standing here?” He leaned casually against the nearest tree, arms crossed over his chest and one knee bent to rest his boot sole against the bark behind him. 

“That wasn’t _smart_ , Firo.” Navina rolled her eyes and made her way closer as the man fought to hold back his laughter, his long sandy brown hair falling in his face. 

Shaking the strands away from his forehead, he blinked rapidly, each exaggerated bat of his lashes seeming to pump more sarcasm into his words. “You mean _I_ ,” he gestured to himself with his thumbs, hands clad in maroon leather fingerless flight gloves, “got the drop on _you_?” He extended both pointer fingers in her direction then, that same stubborn piece of hair flopping between his eyes again. 

_Technically, yes, but I was… distracted._ She clicked her tongue and stepped over a boulder, half buried and covered in spongy green moss and bright orange mushrooms. “You need a haircut, Firo, you look like an overgrown bantha.”

“Deflecting, Harsa?” He pushed off from the tree with one foot and shoved his sleeves up his forearms. “Sounds to _me_ like you’re deflecting.” _He’s not gonna let this go._ The bandolier that he insisted on wearing, even though it was too loose for his thin frame, fell down his shoulder and he reached across himself to fix it. “It sounds to _me_ , like you don’t want to admit that I-” 

“Oh dank _farrik_ , fine. Yes. _Yes_ , you got the drop on me.” Navina played into his gloating like she knew he wanted her to, lacing her own words with playful sarcasm. “So look out, Bounty Hunters of the Outer Rim, because Firostian Ottabok is going to claim all the highest paying pucks for himself.” 

His grin finally grew too large for his face, and it burst into an open mouthed laugh. “Damn, Nav, it’s good to see you.” Throwing his arms around her, he pulled her into a tight hug and she smiled against his chest. Despite his lanky limbs and bony elbows, Firo’s hold on her was strong and secure. Navina returned it with equal force, sliding her arms under his to wrap them around his body. 

“It’s good to see you too, scoundrel.” She pulled away and shoved that same piece of hair away from Firo’s face with two fingers. “But what are you doing out here? We always meet at the caves.” Her eyebrows came together in concern as she scanned his face for any of his tells. _He’s not looking away or scratching his nose, so…_ “You didn’t run into any _trouble_ , did you?” 

“Me? In trouble? He blew out a puff of air and waved one hand, fingers spread wide. “Why are you always so quick to assume I’m in trouble?” Navina arched one eyebrow and stared up at him. _Do you really want me to-_ “You know what?” He slung one arm around her shoulder and urged her to start walking again. “Don’t answer that.” She laughed, falling into step with him as they headed toward the cavern’s opening. _Yeah, that’s what I thought_. 

Navina and Firo had gotten each other into _and_ out of about as much trouble as two outlaws could over the past ten years. If she was keeping track though, she had a strong feeling that the scales would tip slightly more in his direction than hers. There had been the time she convinced a fellow bounty hunter to trade a captured Firo for the three pucks she had on her, and the time she corrected his Twi’leki translation during a deal, diffusing an already heated situation before it could become more volatile. They’d only met in the first place because his ship had crash landed on Yavin 4, and he needed to offload and hide the contraband cargo he was carrying before whoever it was that shot him down found it or _him-_ she was never sure which outcome would have been worse because luckily, neither had happened. _She_ had found him instead.

The network of tunnels and caves deep within the jungle that had kept her family safe for years had also proven to be the perfect place for a smuggler to stash his goods. If Navina hadn’t shown up a few days later for her annual visit, he’d have gone completely undetected, possibly for years. She may have never found him at all. _But that’s not how it went_ . Navina smiled to herself every time she recalled that day. Attacking on instinct, it had taken almost no time at all for her to see that this intruder was no trained fighter. She had him disarmed and pinned with his then hairless cheek pressed to the cool stone wall as she clasped his wrist behind his back in one hand, his blaster in the other. A severely muffled “Um… I can explain _everything_ ,” had been the first words he’d ever said to her, and they had set the tone for a friendship that she wouldn’t trade for all the credits that ever passed through Imperial hands. 

“Alright then,” she tilted her chin up to peer at her taller companion. “If you’re _not_ being followed and there’s no trouble to worry about?” She paused, giving him one last chance to come clean. Laughing, he just shook his head. “Why didn’t you stick to the plan? I come to you, that’s how it’s always been.” 

“Yeah,” another burst of laughter pushed past his lips. “Ever since the first time, right?” He reached up with the arm that was still around her shoulders, tugging at her braid. That earned him a quick smack in the gut from the back of her hand, only causing more rumbling chuckles to erupt.

“And you were _lucky_ it was me that found you, bantha brain, and not whoever it was that you ticked off.” _Just like I was lucky that Firo found me when…_ Absently, the hand she’d just hit him with fell to her waist, where beneath her clothing a long jagged scar crossed her body. Before a chill could settle in her bones, Firo’s warm grin poked dimples into his cheeks and he swiveled his head down to look at her. _Why does he look so kriffing happy?_ She was only slightly suspicious of her friend’s behavior though, his elevated mood and obvious excitement almost contagious. 

The gold flecks that shot through his green eyes shone as his cheeks rose up into them with his smile. “This time I... _have_ something for you.” 

They were nearly there. Navina could see the brighter shafts of light coming through the trees and bushes as they thinned out closer to the cave mouth. “You _have_ something for me?” She scrunched her face up questioningly. “What does that- why couldn’t you just...give it to me when I got there? What’s-”

“Because,” they climbed over a fallen tree in unison, the bottoms of their boots crunching on small gravelly rocks. “You need to _see_ it, and it’s too dark down there.” 

Finally reaching the entrance to their hideaway- _to my...my home_ \- Firo stepped away from her and dug something out of the back pocket of his brown pants. Navina slung the bag off her shoulder, setting it down at her feet in a clatter of metal. She watched closely as he brought the leather wrapped object between the two of them. _What does he have?_

“I found this two...no, three nights ago. When I first landed.” Squinting, she followed his fingers as they slipped under the flap of leather to uncover her gift. “Don’t know how I found it or why or…” He shook his head, the excitement still in his expression. “But as soon as I got down into the cave, soon as I was ready to settle in for the night? Something caught my eye and-” 

Navina gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as he revealed his surprise. “Firo… is that?” Eyes widening, she let her hand fall away from her lips to reach out for the small blade that he held in his hands. Asking questions was some kind of default setting that her mind had scrambled to out of pure shock. She knew without a shadow of a doubt what she was looking at. _That’s a beskar kal…_ The short dagger’s hexagon-shaped blade glinted dark silver in the light as Firo handed it to her. Her heart thudded heavily against her ribs as her left hand closed around the grip, the fingertips of her right hand tracing the rectangular cut out that ran the length of the small but lethal blade. _But these markings…_ Looking closer, she sucked in another breath. “Firo...this was,” tearing her eyes from the dagger was difficult, but she did so to look up at him. “This belonged to my father.” 

The shriek-hawk symbol that was engraved near the handle alone wouldn’t have identified this particular kal as her father’s. It was the addition of her mother’s clan’s signet, along with the tiny carved lettering that she could actually remember her father etching into the Mandalorian steel. _Ina’ika_.

_“This will be yours one day, it’s only right that your name is added.”_ His rich voice echoed in her memory, punctuated by the scratching and clanging of his tools, the little sparks flying from the beskar mesmerizing her. 

“Firo, I,” her eyes fell back to the dagger in her hands. “I never thought I’d see this again.” Twenty-three years. She hadn’t seen her father in Twenty-three years, and while she knew her mother was gone, she had never known for sure what had happened to her father. _To my father or…_ But another thought sliced through, bringing with it a rush of hope that she knew was dangerous but couldn’t stop from flooding her anyway. “Firo, do you think that means… Do you think he was here? _Recently_ ?” The two of them had been back to Yavin countless times, and neither of them had ever found the blade. _So why now? How?_

“Hey, Nav, I...I dunno about… if your dad was- _when_ the last time he was here was or…”Firo lowered his eyes so that he’d intercept hers. “I know that it belongs with you. And I knew you’d be happy to have it back. That’s all I-” 

She didn’t let him finish though, launching herself at him in another forceful hug and being careful not to carve him up with her father’s dagger. “I know. I know you don’t know if he…” she sighed. I may have lost my family but… She pulled away then, brushing a tear away before she let it fully form. “Thank you, Firo.” 

He smiled, the muscles in his face far more familiar with that formation than any other. “You’re welcome, Nav.” Not letting the moment become more emotional than he knew she’d be comfortable with, he picked up her bag and shouldered it. “Now, come on. We’ve got some... _things_ to discuss.” 

The mischief was back in his voice as Navina secured the kal in the inside pocket of her shawl. “Oh do we? What kind of things, trouble?” 

“Well,” he began as they ducked to enter the cavern. “You said you needed a ship, right?” Navina confirmed, eyeing him with a sideways glance. “Well. Word is that the scraps of Imperial garbage that were stationed on Nevarro left in a _big_ hurry.” Navina grinned, already liking where this was going. “Such a hurry,” Firo continued with a wink, “that they left some of their... _equipment_ behind.”

“What a shame,” she answered. “All those ships just...sitting there with no one to fly them.” 

“We really should do something about it, shouldn’t we?” 

_We should._

Not only would she and Firo both _love_ to steal from the Empire, it would solve her transportation problem, and possibly get her closer to the information she’d been chasing. Whatever had caused the Empire to leave Nevarro in such a rush… Navina was _sure_ that it had something to do with other Mandalorians. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rebuilding the Tribe, re-forging the armor, restoring the traditions and culture of the Mandalorians have become more than a way to pass the time alone for Din, they have become the penance that he inflicted on himself for breaking the Creed that he swore all those years ago. But perhaps The Way has more paths than he previously thought. 

_Tatooine_

The Mandalorian’s hands moved swiftly over the illuminated switchboard, pulling levers, adjusting knobs and pressing buttons with focused precision. Air rushed in short bursts from the ship’s thrusters to kick up clouds of dusty desert sand as the _Promise_ made its descent into hangar 3-5. He had contacted Peli once he’d come out of hyperdrive, making sure that he would be clear to land. The woman’s strident tone coming through the speaker had almost been enough to make him smile. 

“‘Course you’re clear to land, Mando, who do you think you’re talking to here? _Honestly_ , it’s like you forget completely that I’m the one who-” A loud crash followed by a series of panicked sounding mechanical beeps on her end of the holo pulled her attention over her shoulder then, and she directed her tirade at the droid that had caused the ruckus. Turning back to him with a sigh, she shook her head, her springy curls bouncing slightly. “Listen, I gotta go before these droids wreck what’s left of my spare parts stash. Knowin’ you it’ll only be a matter of time before you turn up needin’ _extensive_ repairs, so-” Another avalanche of clanging interrupted her, and she lifted one hand in an exasperated gesture. “See what I mean? Still can’t get good help around here, I’m tellin’ ya.” Mumbling something about needing to charge more for having to work with such mediocre employees, she jabbed a finger at a button he couldn’t see, ending the transmission abruptly as per her usual. 

The trip from Trask had gone smoothly and without incident. Since he was no longer on the run, trying to keep Grogu safely one step ahead of the enemy, there was no need to take long convoluted routes as he traveled the Outer Rim. No alarms blared to warn him of incoming fire or approaching ships. If he wanted to, he could have taken long stretches away from the cockpit, setting the course and letting the autopilot take control while he caught some sleep in his bunk. But despite the fact that the mattress, while thin, was more comfortable than the pilot seat, he rarely used it. 

Sharing the small onboard sleeping quarters with Grogu meant that for all those months while they traveled together he never slept without his helmet, but the man didn’t mind. He wanted to be close to the child so that he could protect him or provide comfort as necessary, so he sacrificed a modicum of his own comfort without pause. Climbing into bed each night after removing every piece of beskar aside from the one that kept his sworn secret, he would watch the small lump wiggling in the hammock above him until the movement stopped and the stillness was punctuated by soft, rumbling snores. Knowing that the child was resting peacefully, he would close his own eyes and find sleep within seconds. 

It wasn’t until he tried to sleep without the hammock strung up over his head, without the sleepily murmured coos and rustling sounds of the blankets, without the rhythmic snores and soft breathing, that he realized he _couldn’t_. The space between his bunk and the ceiling seemed to leave too much room for the sounds of the empty ship to bounce around. The whir of the engines, the clicks and beeps of the equipment muffled by two sets of closed doors, the sound of his own breathing as it spread out in the small room, free from the echoing confines of his helmet all proved nothing but the fact that he was alone. Sleeping in the cockpit was something he had done frequently before Grogu had ever come into his life, so falling back into that habit came far more easily to him, even if it was more uncomfortable. 

_I’ll sleep tonight, it’s fine._

After delivering the reclaimed beskar safely back to the Tribe, he would have some time before Bo-Katan was expected to arrive on Tatooine. According to her position from the last contact he had with her, she and her crew were roughly two days behind him on their return from a different location along the Outer Rim. He knew that she was eager to discuss tactics for retaking Mandalore, that she’d immediately want to begin drawing up plans and determining where and when to make their first strike. It was her home, and it has been lost. At one time her sister, her own flesh and blood sat on the throne. He had never set foot on the planet himself and therefore struggled to feel the same calling or desire to see it restored that she did. Mandalore wasn’t his home, and he had no family there. But he understood what she felt, because had lost both of those things himself. He knew that if presented with the opportunity to get them back, he’d stop at nothing. 

_I’ll see you again._ He closed his eyes as his own words of assurance echoed in his head. _I promise_. If how he felt about Grogu, the child who had become his own, was anything like what the heiress carried for Mandalore, then he understood. 

Descending the ladder into the ship’s hull, he sighed as a sudden thud from outside accompanied the sound of his heavy footsteps. _Droids_ . Frenzied beeps and clicks followed by another, softer more controlled thunk confirmed that Peli’s mechanics were tripping over one another to refuel his vessel. The small copper colored units always seemed happy to see his ship in their hangar, always racing to get started with whatever needed to be done before he even lowered the ramp. It was almost as though they were competing with one another for which of them would get the honor of scraping off carbon scoring or tightening bolts on the landing gear. He had no doubt it was because they remembered the way that he had taken care of Toro when the rookie bounty hunter had taken control of the hangar, holding Peli and Grogu at gunpoint. _I didn’t do it for them, I did it for the kid._ But it didn’t matter, the heroic action making a lasting mark on the droids and earning him three loyal mechanics for life. _At least they’re useful_ . The distinct sound of the refueling hose being misaligned with the tank nozzle drew another sigh from him. _Most of the time_.

Crossing the hull to head for the ramp, he paused as he stepped in front of the doors to the weapons locker and storage container. Though he didn’t _like_ carrying the darksaber on his person, he knew that leaving it on board the _Promise_ while he traveled across the Dune Sea to deliver the beskar, even if it was locked away, wasn’t safe. To him, it was still just a weapon, but he knew that it was a very powerful and dangerous one if it fell into the wrong hands. He still wasn’t sure that his were the _right_ hands, but he knew that he at least had the duty to keep that from happening. _I’ll take it with me when I go._ While he trusted Peli, he didn’t trust a second soul in all of Mos Eisley. Where he was headed though, he had no reason to worry about trust or risk. _It will be safe there_. The Darksaber, the beskar, the Tribe- it would all be safe there. 

First though, he had someone to see. With a press of a button the ramp dropped open, the arid heat of Tatooine’s desert air filling the cabin instantly. Quickly entering a code into the panel on one of his vambraces, he activated the cooling gear inside his armor, a rush of super chilled air flowing through the plates to keep him from cooking under the blaring suns. Before he had taken two steps out into the bright light, he was greeted with a wave and a shout from the short woman striding quickly towards him. 

“You did make good time, didn’t you? Oh!” She stepped back, her sun-tanned face scrunching up in mock surprise as she appraised the _Promise_ . “And you weren’t lyin’ about stayin’ outta trouble this time either! So you _can_ fly a ship without getting shot at? Huh! Look at that!” 

_Some things never change_ . “It’s nice to see you, too.” Though she was abrasive on the surface, and always had her bottom line near the forefront of her mind, he knew that Peli was a good person. It was because of her that he even had a ship in the first place. When he returned to Tatooine without the _Razor Crest_ or it’s smallest passenger, she began making arrangements with contacts that she had helped through the years. Thanks to an intricate half truth and a convoluted cover up that allowed a mistakenly accused Wookiee to escape unfair imprisonment at the hands of the Empire a few years back, she was able to call in a hefty favor in the form of a newly refurbished ship straight from the depot on Kashyyyk. 

_“You’re gonna owe me big time for this!_ ” She had said, her arms crossed as she nodded at the ship and then to the dumbfounded Mandalorian. But she had yet to mention any form of repayment other than the regular fees to dock, refuel and repair his ship as needed. He had a sneaking suspicion though, that she’d never actually ask for that repayment, preferring instead to tell him often that he wouldn’t get anywhere without old Peli in his corner. 

Though he had spent a great deal of his life alone, whether by choice or necessity, the time he spent with Grogu had taught him many things, not the least of which how important it was to appreciate allies wherever he found them. A sarcastic mechanic? A re-programmed bounty droid? An ex-imperial soldier? Mandalorians who removed their helmets freely and Jedi that wielded mystic blades of pure energy- the list of unlikely allies that he wouldn’t have given a second thought to prior to the child’s presence in his life stretched on, and while it was still new for him to have more than a handful of acquaintances, to have people that he actually _trusted_ and _respected_ ? He found himself glad that some things did change. The hollow, listless way he was left feeling when those lift doors slid closed and that enormous pair of eyes was _gone…_ he couldn’t imagine navigating that alone, let alone the things that he was expected to navigate. A planetary takeover, reuniting warrior clans that have been tearing one another and their homeworld to pieces for centuries, finding a balance between his beliefs and responsibilities. Not for the first or last time he found himself wishing that Bo-Katan had not turned down his offer. But she did, and it was his burden to bear. 

Once he’d settled up with Peli, paying her for the fuel and for the amount of time he expected to occupy her hangar as well as the rental of one of the speeders she kept at the ready, the Mandalorian returned to the ship to pack for his trip. Unlocking the storage compartment next to the weapons locker, he removed the three camtonos of beskar he had recovered from Tirzeg on Trask, as well as the large sack of ingots and mismatched vambraces that he relieved Barlag of on Mon Cala. He carried it down the ramp in two trips, refusing help from the droids, much to their enthusiastic dismay. It was heavy, but like the Darksaber, it was a weight that could only be carried by a Mandalorian. 

Returning to the ship, he quickly grabbed a bag of personal items for his stay away from the Promise. He always traveled light, only ever packing what was necessary for hygiene and survival. The only object that held any real personal meaning was something that he always kept with him, tucked in one of the small pouches on his belt. The smooth, shiny silver ball went everywhere he went. He knew without question that he would see Grogu again. He didn’t know when or where or how, but he knew that when he did he would want his favorite toy back. _I’m holding onto it for you, kid_. He told himself that he carried the trinket, one of the only things that had survived the explosion on Tython, just so that he’d have it handy when clan Mudhorn was again a clan of two. But he knew that it was just as much for himself as it was for the child, and he would find himself absently turning it over in his palm at night when he couldn’t sleep, the stars flying by in silence. 

His final stop, as it always was when he readied himself for a trip or mission, was at the weapons locker. He had picked up a few of the weapons that Tirzeg’s crew had discarded, adding them to his arsenal so that more of the pegs were filled now. Holstering a blaster, a small vibroblade and the beskar spear, he reached last for the hefty hilt of the saber. He knew that if he was truly meant to wield this blade he would need to become familiar with it, would need to learn to control and direct the current of energy that passed through it’s core with each swing and swipe. His gloved fingers closed tightly around the grip, the leather creaking against the metal. _But who am I supposed to learn that from?_ Pushing the question aside for another time, he clipped the sword to the belt at his waist. Putting the ship into lockdown, he double checked the straps that he fastened the beskar to the speeder with, and satisfied that they would hold for the duration of the journey, he climbed onto the bike and in a cloud of dust, put the hangar and the entire spaceport behind him. 

The journey across the Dune Sea to the Covert’s new location was a long one, and though he could have flown directly there, he didn’t want to attract attention to the one place that he knew was safe for his people to rebuild. Though his new ship wasn’t nearly as recognizable as the _Razor Crest,_ he knew it was only a matter of time until the _Promise_ was as easily noticeable. Making the hours long trek across the sand on the speeder was safer, and so he did it without complaint. He knew that the Mandalorians that gave their lives for him and Grogu on Nevarro were only following the tenets of The Way when they made their sacrifice, but he would do whatever he could to ensure that those who had survived that bloody standoff would have a chance at a safe future. 

Fett’s new residency on the throne that his former employer once sat upon had proven to be more square footage than the man desired, and he had offered the subterranean complex of Jabba’s palace to the Mandalorians who had made it off of Nevarro, as well as the ones who Bo-Katan and Koska had recruited. They had been able to convert the network of tunnels and chambers into living and training areas with space dedicated for teaching foundlings as well as a forge for the Armorer. While he wasn’t convinced that Mandalore could be won, Boba admired the effort and the commitment to the cause that the new Mand’alor was inspiring. _“Don’t need those dank tunnels anyway,”_ he’d grumbled from behind the rim of a spotchka jug, _“Your lot can take them.”_

He was more grateful to the man than he could articulate, and luckily he knew that praise and thanks were the last thing that Fett was looking for. The two of them understood one another well. While neither owed the other a debt, neither would think twice before offering assistance or allegiance. It was a brotherhood that came from the armor that they both proudly wore and the trials that they had both gone through to secure that armor. Revving the throttle on the speeder’s handle, pushing the vehicle to go faster, the Mandalorian’s eye was drawn to the blue triangles painted on the handplates that covered his gloves. It was the only piece of armor that was salvageable from the body of the man who had raised him, the man he had known as his kin despite only knowing him by the way the dim light of the covert’s halls reflected off of the blue and silver beskar that he wore. The man wasn’t his birth father, but he had taken him in as a frightened, scrawny child, protected him and taught him how to protect himself. He was the only father the Mandalorian remembered, and though he wished he had more of the man’s armor than the hand plates, he was proud and honored to wear them. He knew that Fett felt the same way having reclaimed the armor that had been rightfully passed to him from his own father. With a slight turn of his head he glanced out the corner of his eye at the signet he wore on his pauldron. _One day, this armor will belong to Grogu, if he wants it._ He would do everything in his power to ensure that not only the Mudhorn signet, but the blue painted handplates as well, both made their way into his own son’s hands when it was time. The thought gave him solace, hope, something of himself and his past that he could leave for the future of his clan. 

It was another reason that reclaiming the beskar that had been stolen from his people was so important to him, and would be regardless of whether or not he was meant to lead them. By bringing the metal back one brick at a time, he was bringing back the chance for families to pass down meaningful heirlooms from one generation to the next. Each strike of the Armorer’s tools as she pressed and hammered the molten beskar into weapons and armor was another line of history rewritten, another chance for Mandalorian tradition and culture to make a comeback. They had nearly been scratched from existence, but now they had a chance to carve themselves back in. 

In a way, he saw it as a penance for the things he’d done that had broken the Creed. He’d removed his helmet and revealed his face, and even though he’d put the beskar back on as soon as the child had left, he felt that he had passed a point of no return when it came to reconciling with the rules that he lived his life by. So even though he worked endlessly to provide enough armor for all the existing Tribe members, as well as any foundlings or newcomers, he had yet to deliver the beskar straight to the Armorer herself. As the leader of his covert, she had always been the voice of reason, the one to settle disputes and to remind them all of the Resol’nare. 

_“Have you ever removed your helmet? Has it ever been removed by another?”_

Though it had been nearly a year since the last time he’d heard the woman ask those questions, her voice rang clearly in his memory, just like the clanging of her hammer and the crackle of the sparks that illuminated her visor as she worked. His helmet had still never been lifted by anyone but himself, but he had shown his face not only to the foundling in his care, but in front of a room full of eyes. He knew that it was forbidden in his Tribe to ever show one’s face once the Creed was sworn. The only exception was when a Mandalorian chose a partner. The vows that were sworn in marriage bonded the two as one so that neither was an individual anymore. 

_"Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde"_

We, not I or you. Mandalorian bonds were unbreakable and therefore had no seems, no ending or beginning, no place where one collided into another. The forming of that kind of bond was forever, and so through marriage and the swearing of those vows, a Mandalorian could lift the helm of their partner without breaking the Creed, as then it would be the same as removing it themselves. 

_But that’s not what I did._

He had never met anyone who he cared about, who he wanted to know as deeply as he knew himself. He had no partner, no second soul to walk through life with, and so what he did was not the same. What he did was not the same at all, and it was precisely for that reason that he could not face the Armorer, that he had always arranged to meet with another Mandalorian who would then transfer the beskar to the forge. He took his turn in the training rooms, sparring with younger fighters and monitoring rounds between others. He studied the language and helped teach it to the foundlings. He did everything he could to take part in all of the things that were required to rebuild. But he could not bring himself to face the woman. 

As he pulled up to the looming round structure that was only a fraction of the complex’s actual size, he wondered if he’d ever feel like he had done enough to absolve himself of his sins. He wondered if the fact that he didn’t regret them would stand in the way of forgiveness. _It doesn’t matter._ He parked the speeder in one of the designated alcoves and dismounted before removing the spear from his back. Sliding the handles of the camotonos along the shaft, he balanced the weight of the three bins, plus the two bags that he carried over his shoulders, and made his way towards the meeting point where he’d hand off the beskar. _I’m not going down there today_.

There were several entrances to the underground areas, and he chose the one that was closest to the forge out of convenience for both himself and for whomever’s turn it was to accept the deposit of raw materials. The designated hand-off location was on a landing that separated the subterranean portion of the palace from the topside, and he waited there at the base of the stairs for his contact to turn up. The last few times the other Mandalorian had always been waiting for him, or else they had shown up at the same time, coordinating their arrivals almost perfectly. But this time, the seconds ticked by for longer than usual, and while he heard plenty of sounds that told him that everything below was fine- the laughter of children running through the halls, the modulated voices of men and women speaking, the clang of steel on steel as students in the fighting core practiced their striking- he started to grow uneasy. _Did they forget?_ He opened a panel on his wrist, and was just about to signal his contact again, when he heard something else. Footsteps striking the sandy stone staircase from below shook him from his thoughts. _Finally_. “You’re late.” He spoke to the shadows before his contact had fully entered the room. “I thought maybe you-“ 

“I know what you thought, Mand’alor.” The clear voice rang out just like in his memory as the armor clad figure came through the doorway. He froze as the woman stepped into view, her profile unmistakable from the points on her helmet to the fur that trimmed her cape. “What I want to know is why you haven’t come down into the forge yourself.”

Dropping his chin, he looked down at the ground so that she wouldn’t have to look directly at him when he answered. _Or so that I don’t have to look at her?_ He wasn’t sure. _It doesn’t matter_. “I… dishonored the Creed. I…” Grogu’s tiny hand reaching for his cheek flashed behind his eyes. “I removed my helmet in front of another.” With a small shake of his head, he confirmed both his lack of regret and unwillingness to forget what he’d done. “I am no longer worthy of-” 

“Stop.” The woman walked closer to him, not ceasing her advancement until he could see not only the tips of her boots, but a long object that she held. “Do you not speak our language and preserve our traditions? Do you not reclaim what has been stolen for the betterment of the clans? Do you not wear the armor and use it to fight for our people?” 

Raising his eyes he leveled them with hers, where they would be, if they were not concealed. He sighed, knowing that he needed to answer her. “I do. But I have also-” 

“Did you not act with the best intentions of the foundling that was in your care?” 

“I did.” _But…_

“And,” she went on, taking another step and lifting the object that she held so that he could see it more clearly. It appeared to be some sort of weapon, sheathed in black leather. “Are you not the one holding the Darksaber, the Mand’alor that has begun to unite the clans, here?” She looked up at the vaulted ceilings to indicate the enormous fortress. 

“Yes, I-” 

“Your self-inflicted punishment must come to an end now. Your people need their leader strong and present, not hiding from the things that he thinks make him weak. You are not _weak_ , Mand’alor, and you have done far more to honor the Creed than you could ever do to dishonor it. Shoulder the blame how you will in private. But you must shoulder your mantle for all to see. No more hiding. _This_ is The Way.” 

The four words gave him chills. He had told himself that he would never hear them from the woman again, never stand in her presence and receive her wisdom. “This is The Way,” he responded with a slight bow of his head. It wasn't a complete absolution that she granted him, but it was more than he thought he would get, and it was a start on the road to self-forgiveness and the re-evaluation of his personal beliefs. It felt easier to breathe. 

Wasting no time and sparing no emotion, the Armorer continued, lifting the item that she held. _What is..?_ “I have been told by the weapons master that you still do not spar with the Darksaber.” _No, I don’t_ . She tilted her head. “Why?”   
  


He let out a short breath. “It...is unlike the weapons I’ve trained with. It’s-” 

“It is _yours_ , Mand’alor, and you must learn to make it so. You must learn to wield it like no other can. But you cannot do that if it remains clipped to your belt.” Raising the item in her hands, she held it between them for him to take. “This will help you become accustomed to the Darksaber.” 

Unwrapping the item in reverent silence, he could feel that the weight was the same as the black blade, though it was no sword made from energy or light. The blade he held was one of folded beskar, the ribbons of dark metal shining back blindingly up at him. He had never seen anything like it before, the blade coming to a long lethal point, the hilt perfectly balanced with the weight of the blade. “It’s…”  
  


“A beskad,” The Armorer nodded. “The very first type of sword that Mandalorians conquered and ruled with. The sword that Tarre Vizsla modeled the Darksaber after in size and shape. Forged from the excess beskar that you have supplied for the Tribe, and the perfect way for you to become comfortable with using a weapon like it.” 

Upon closer inspection, he saw that the Mudhorn signet had been etched into the blade near the grip, and he ran his fingertips over the animal’s profile. “I...don’t know what to say.” Once again, the Armorer had bestowed upon him the knowledge and direction that he needed exactly when he needed it. “Thank you.” 

“This is The Way.” 

He returned the phrase and with that the woman lifted the camtonos and with heavily clunking footsteps, made her way back down into the forge where those very bricks would be melted down and hammered out before she laid her head down to rest that night. 

The next morning, after the first good night’s rest he had gotten in weeks, the Mandalorian was woken by an unexpected transmission coming from the communications holo in his bag. Digging it out, he fit his helmet back onto his head before answering it, expecting Bo-Katan’s figure to appear to tell him that she was landing ahead of schedule and asking when he would be available to meet. But it wasn’t her- two figures appeared instead, those of Cara Dune and Greef Karga, both a surprise. 

“Mando,” Cara greeted him with a nod, forgoing the use of his name even though she and Karga both knew it. “You still looking for stolen beskar?” 

He immediately looked over at the wrapped blade that was presented to him the night before. “I am.” 

“Well, my friend, we may have something you’ll want to see for yourself.” Karga rummaged in his robes and pulled out a second holo device, setting it down in view of the one that he was using to speak to him with. With the press of a button, the second device flickered to life to show a security recording of a man and woman sneaking into a fenced off area on an ex-imperial base. 

Cara explained what he was looking at. “Caught footage of these two casing this airfield, likely smugglers looking for a faster ride.” Karga pressed another button and the image zoomed in closer. “Take a look at her armor, it looks-” 

“That’s a beskar helmet.” He knew it without having to question it. “But the rest looks…” 

“It looks like a common thief using Mandalorian armor is what it looks like,” Cara suggested for him. He had to agree. “We can try to stall them, if you want to come check it out for yourself, intercept them when they come back to hit the base, but you’ll need to get here quickly. Can you leave today?” 

The Darksaber sat next to the Beskad as though reminding him of Bo-Katan’s imminent arrival. _But the beskar… I can’t leave it in the hands of a thief._ Making the decision that the heiress would just have to wait another week while he traveled back to Nevarro, he told Cara that he’d leave shortly, and that she should expect his transmission with an ETA before nightfall. _Besides,_ he thought to himself as he began the process of donning the armor, _fighting a thief is the perfect opportunity to practice with my new blade._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Navina and Firo off to hit an abandoned Imperial base on Nevarro in hopes of scoring a hot new ride (that won’t litter bolts all over the galaxy like the Flare will) and Mando responding to Cara’s holo about a beskar sighting, the stage is set for an introduction to remember... and hopefully not a bloody one. 

_ Nevarro _

“You sure about this, Nav?” Firo peered through a pair of binocs, turning a dial on the side to zoom in. He had them pointed at the fenced off facility that they had cased out shortly after landing on the volcanic planet. Abandoned by the Empire twice now, the base, carved into the side of a cliff out past the lava flats, had still not been addressed by the New Republic. Although it was clear from their cursory recon that the place had taken some recent damage, it appeared as though it still housed plenty of small ships and speeders. 

The plan had  _ originally  _ been to fly in on the  _ Flare _ , Firo’s current ship, and set down on the landing pad. They’d discussed it first in the caves on Yavin, Firo sharing the location of the base and what limited information he had heard from a fellow smuggler over a game of Sabacc. Rumored to have no security detail, not even droids, they had figured that it would be an easy job. Load up the  _ Flare  _ and another small ship with a few speeders that they could sell on the black market, then split up, Firo in his ship and Navina in the one previously owned by the Empire. The goal was to be in and out and off of the planet so quickly that even if there  _ were  _ cameras or sensors on the base, they’d be long gone before anyone could turn up to stop them. And that had seemed completely feasible. Until now. 

_ Plans have never really been my thing anyway _ . “I’m sure.”  _ Besides, this might actually work out to my benefit... _

Pulling the lenses away from his eyes, he turned to face her. “Even though the Marshal is-” 

“Since when has a Marshal ever stopped us, Firo?” She shot him her cockiest smirk, casually crossing her ankles as she leaned her palm against the  _ Flare’s _ hull. “Since when has-” Her friend gritted his teeth and tried to stop her, but it was too late. The panel she’d chosen to press her weight into gave under pressure, the metal creaking as it dented inwards sending Navina off balance. “Woah!” Firo sucked air through his teeth as he reached out to help her catch herself, but she brushed him off with a huff that he knew she had to work hard not to allow to turn into a laugh. “Alright, on an unrelated note, you need to have that looked at.” She pointed at the flimsy piece that upon closer inspection she realized had been poorly soldered on in an attempt to reinforce a previous repair. Shaking her head, she looked up at the ship and then back at Firo. “I can’t believe I got on this thing and  _ flew  _ here with you.” 

“Hey!” He tried to keep a straight face too, but a snicker threatened to turn into a full blown snort if he didn’t let it out. “Alright, yeah, she needs some work.”  _ That’s the understatement of the century _ . “Still beats taking a  _ commuter shuttle _ though, Harsa,” he teased, knowing that she had had to put up with a series of shuttle transfers to get to Yavin from Coruscant, and that it was her least favorite way to travel the galaxy. 

“Not if she falls apart the second you make the jump to hyperspace,” she teased back. He couldn’t come up with anything quickly enough, so she steered the conversation back to the task at hand. “But as I was saying, we’ve always been able to get around the Marshals we’ve come across. We’ll just have to... “ She shrugged. “Improvise.” With that, she turned and headed around the back of the ship to climb the ramp. Taking a large step  _ up  _ as the ramp no longer opened all the way, she sighed.  _ This ship is a kriffing disaster _ . 

“Improvise?” Firo followed her around and hoisted himself up onto the ramp as she started rifling through her bag to gather what she would need. He crossed his arms and tilted his head, watching as she pulled two comm links from an inner compartment. 

Navina blew into one of them, then tapped the receiving end to make sure it was still in working order. “Yeah,” she said, tossing it to him with a grin. He snatched it out of the air and tucked it into the front pocket of his pants. “Improvise.” She checked the second comm link, giving it a shake for good measure before hiding it away under her shawl. 

Firo waited for her to look back up at him to respond. “We  _ are  _ pretty good at that.” 

“ _ Good? _ Who’s better?” She asked with a wink, turning back to her bag to dig out her armor. “Remember that time on Onderon?” She pulled out a purple painted shoulder pauldron, untwisting the leather straps that were used to keep it in place. “When we-” 

“ _ Nav _ ?” He cut her off then, walking completely through the doorway to stand next in front of her, and she knew instantly that he was concerned. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and set the second pauldron on top of the first one, the durasteel clinking softly. With a sigh, he went on, green-gold eyes narrowing briefly and his lips turning down into a slight frown. “I know there’s...  _ something  _ you’re not telling me.” 

She stiffened, a sudden wave of guilt making her wince.  _ He’s right _ . There was a lot she hadn’t told him, and while she had reasoned that the less he knew about some of her plans the safer he’d be, she also knew better than to think that he wouldn’t be able to tell when she was being withholding.  _ He knows me better than anyone, of course he knows that I’m… that something’s _ … “Firo, I-” 

“Look,” he placed a hand on her shoulder, gently turning her the rest of the way so that he could look straight at her as he spoke. “I didn’t want to say anything on Yavin, because I know that,” his forehead furrowed and he swallowed as he dropped his arm back to his side. “I know... what time of the year it is. I know that,” he shook his head and dropped his chin. “I know you were hoping that… _ dank farrik _ .” 

He knew that she was hoping that this would be the year that she would be reunited with her father and the little one. Navina’s mother was gone, that was a fact, but the rest of her family was a mystery. He knew that she only allowed herself those three days to hope that they were still alive, because the last time that they had seen each other they had agreed on a designated time each year that they would return to Yavin 4, the last place they had called home, if it were safe for them to do so. She and her mother had missed the first few years, the need to stay hidden keeping them from being able to make the trip. At that time her parents were still able to at least transmit the occasional holo, and while she wanted nothing more than to be able to  _ see  _ her father and the child that she affectionately called verd’ika, she understood, even then, that their hiding was necessary.  _ This is the Way. _ She could remember thinking it even then, could hear her own small voice repeating the words back to her mother, the two of them tucking their hopes away for another year.

Twenty three years later, she was still packing and unpacking that hope, the thing riddled with creases and worn thin along the folds. She knew that the odds weren’t good that her family was still alive, or if they were, that they hadn’t been captured or separated. Regardless, every year she gave herself three days to air that hope, to go home and wait for them to join her there.  _ But this year was no different from the last one. They’re- _ she squeezed her eyes shut against the word.  _ No _ . She wouldn’t even  _ think  _ the word until she had confirmation. 

_ Ni partayli, gar darasuum. I remember you, so you are eternal.  _ As the phrase played in her head, she reached under the cowl of her shawl for the pendant around her neck, squeezing it until she could feel the tusks digging into her palm and then running her finger around the rim of one carved eye, nail scratching against the hard, faceted stone that had been set inside.  _ I remember _ . 

And she had been remembering so much lately, the flashes from the night they had fled Concordia coming much more clearly than ever before. It made no sense to her that she would suddenly be able to recall clips of dialogue or images of faces with increasing ease as more time passed, but for the last few months that had been the case. And then when Firo had found her father’s kal, it had been too simple to give in to the time-worn hope, too tempting to see it as a sign. But it had obviously been there the whole time, she told herself, despite the fact that it wasn’t obvious at all. 

She hadn’t told Firo about the increased power or frequency with which the amethyst tinted memories were coming to her, but that wasn’t all she was keeping from him, and it was the second omission that she truly felt guilty about. He was extremely gracious in granting her whatever level of secrecy or privacy she wanted or needed when it came to her family and the closure that she longed for there. While he knew she didn’t  _ truly  _ consider herself to be a Mandalorian as she’d never sworn the Creed or been fitted for her own armor, he understood that she still held fast to the traditions and beliefs that she was raised on; that her clan - her  _ aliit _ , one of the few Mando’a words that Firo had picked up through the years, and one that Navina thought was appropriate for him, always looking at him as a brother of sorts - was bonded together indelibly, and that she’d never turn her back on that bond. 

The guilt she felt was in no way related to her family or Yavin or her memories. It was in regards to what she’d heard in the lower levels of Coruscant, the city under the city at the center of the galaxy. A rumor, but one she’d been chasing for a long time, had caught her attention, and she couldn’t let it go until she’d seen it through, and it was for that reason that she was insistent upon going through with their plan to hit the abandoned base. Yes, she needed a ship.  _ Firo could do with a new one, too, honestly. _ But she also needed to know if what she’d heard was true- that the Darksaber had changed hands once more… but that it had once more eluded both of the women who sought it most fiercely, herself, so that she could destroy it, and Bo-Katan of House Kryze, the radical who at one point plotted to overthrow her own sister for the Mandalorian throne.  _ And if it is true, if it’s no longer in Imperial hands… I need to know who has it now _ . 

While she didn’t know the exact location of it, Navina knew that there had been, until recently, a Mandalorian covert here on Nevarro. She had no idea how large their numbers were, only that there had been a very violent standoff with the Imperial remnant who’s base she and Firo were about to loot. But the most interesting part of the rumors that she had collected in her travels from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim, was that the New Republic’s Marshal stationed there had been linked to a Mandalorian- to the Mandalorian that the Imps had been targeting. So when she saw the woman with the badge pinned to her belt and the heavy blaster rifle she carried with absolute confidence, it had the exact opposite effect that that sort of deterrent would have on anyone else.  _ I need to know. _ She sighed, binging one hand up to her forehead and pushing it back over her scalp. She grabbed the base of her long, thick braid and followed it down to the end, pulling it as she looked back up at her friend.  _ But he needs to know, too _ . 

“Firo, it’s…” 

“It’s about that damn  _ saber _ , isn’t it?” He raised one eyebrow in a high arch, and her stunned silence paired with the stupefied expression she knew she was wearing answered for her. “Yeah,” he nodded. “I know. You get…” he squinted at her, “you act  _ differently  _ when you have a lead on something about your family or that kriffing sword.” 

“Firo,” she reached for his arms, her hands cuffing around his biceps to emphasize how important this was to her. “That  _ kriffing sword  _ is what-” 

Bending his elbows, he grabbed her hands and pulled them down, not angrily but forcefully, holding her wrists as he spoke. “I know. I know what you… how you  _ feel  _ about it and about what it stands for and… and the part it played in…” He clamped his eyes shut then, but before he did she noticed how prominent the golden flecks in them were.  _ He’s nervous. _ Of the two of them, Firo was absolutely more likely to worry when it came to her safety. She flinched, knowing that she had given him plenty of reasons to throughout the span of their friendship. The scrapes that he typically got himself into were almost always easy enough to weasel him out of with a little careful negotiation or a generous bribe. The spots she found herself in however, usually resulted in drawn blasters and blades. He let out a breath and released his grip on her wrists. “Nav, I just need to know you’re not gonna get yourself killed.” 

She clicked her tongue, trying to lighten the mood. “Come on, Firo, I’m a hard woman to kill. I have the-” 

“ _ The scars to prove it, _ ” he finished the second part of her sentence in unison with her, rolling his eyes. “I know. I’m trying to be serious here, Harsa.” 

“I know.” She said it quietly, blinking up at him as his hard frown softened. “I’m sorry, Firo, I should have told you what I was…” she shook her head, the end of her braid bouncing behind her. “I should have told you that I knew about…” she groaned, leaning forward until her forehead met his chest. 

To her surprise she felt it rumble as he chuckled.  _ Huh? He’s… laughing? _ She picked her head up, a confused look on her face. “Apologizing is really rough for you, isn’t it?” 

With that she let out a laugh of her own. “Only with you though, isn’t that strange?” She winked at him, swatting at his stomach. 

“Very strange indeed,” he agreed, intercepting her swat and pushing her hand away. “Alright. So we’re improvising. What have you got so far?” 

Her grin climbed her cheeks then, and she laid out her new plot. “Not going to get myself killed, Firo. Just  _ captured _ .” 

Less than an hour later they were prepped and ready to put their backup plan into action. Navina removed her gray shawl, strapping her purple chestplate and pauldrons to the black flak vest she wore over her short sleeved black top. Next she wrapped her wrists in padded black fabric and slid the vambraces over them. The left one was utterly useless in terms of weaponry; it appeared as though at one point it was equipped with whistling birds, but the mechanism had been damaged by the previous owner and now its only use was protection.  _ But it’s beskar, so it’s worth wearing. _ The right one still had a functioning flamethrower, though it was low on fuel, and a grappling line, though it had snared the last time she tried to deploy it so she made a mental note not to count on it cooperating this time either. Holstering her blaster on her thigh, she took her father’s beskar kal from her bag, attaching the sheath she had made for it on the trip to Nevarro to her belt. The last piece of armor she donned was her mother’s helmet, the traditional “T” shaped visor smashed along the eyeline, but the modulator and audio features still in working order. 

“Well look at you, Nav, you look like a real live Mando if I ever saw one.”  _ You haven’t, bantha brain _ . “I like the,” he grasped his right wrist with his left hand, a quizzical look coming over his face as he tried to search for the right word. “ _ Those _ things.” 

Firo had armed himself as well, a pair of blasters on his hips, a small knife in his boot, and a handful of different blaster cartridges on his bandolier that he could switch out for different effects if necessary. Navina felt a knot twist in her stomach though as she remarked not for the first time that he wore no armor at all, nothing to protect him but his speed if triggers were pulled down there.  _ We’ve got to change that if this is the type of thing we’re going to be doing _ .

“Alright,” she let out a breath and locked her eyes with his through her broken visor. “Last chance to back out. This is my thing, you don’t have to be involved if you-” 

“Would you knock it off already?” He tapped the side of her helmet softly, the action causing her to snort as she recalled the first time he’d bopped her on the head while she was wearing the beskar helmet, and how he had nearly broken his hand. “You ready?” She nodded.  _ I am. _ “Okay. Let’s go get you captured I guess.” Grumbling under his breath about how he had a feeling that he was going to regret this, he walked down the ramp, hopping off the edge where it dangled a foot or two from the ground. She followed on his heels, smiling to herself. 

Since they were changing the plan, they were no longer flying the  _ Flare  _ down to the base’s landing pad, as only one of them- Firo- would be flying out. Instead they left the dilapidated ship where it was and headed for the entrance furthest from where the Marshal and the man she had with her were stationed. Navina would hold them off, distracting them while Firo made his way up to the landing pad to make off with a ship, and then hopefully, after she found out what she needed to know and got herself out of whatever lockup situation the New Republic’s Marshals instituted on Nevarro, she’d rendezvous with him here where the  _ Flare  _ was waiting, and they would head for some place where they could lay low for a week or two. They had their comm links in case they needed to contact one another after they separated. But Navina had a good feeling about how this was going to go. She kept that to herself though, sure that Firo would have some snarky comment about how her  _ good feelings _ were almost always bad portents.

As they neared the edge of the cliff face that had been providing them cover, Navina reached out and stopped Firo in his tracks. “Promise me you’ll bail if I tell you to.”

“Uh oh,” he joked. “You have a good feeling, don’t you?” 

“Firo,” she groaned. “I mean it. Promise me if I tell you to leave you will. I-” 

“I promise, Nav.” He acquiesced then, giving the tail of her braid a slight tug where it stuck out from the bottom of her helmet. “Now, let’s go.” 

She nodded, and with that, they split, both heading off in different directions- Firo towards the secondary entrance that they’d found on their initial recon mission a few days back, and Navina  _ straight  _ towards the waiting Marshal. She glanced back over her shoulder as she reached the last of the small boulders she was darting between for cover, and seeing Firo’s boots disappear through the door, she took a deep breath and ran. 

“What’s the town to do with the law this far out on the flats?” Navina projected her voice over the empty space as she rounded the corner, making for where she knew the two temporary sentinels were waiting. 

But the second she got close, a third figure stepped into view, one that halted her in her tracks.  _ Dank. Farrik.  _ She raised her hands, palms facing outwards, as the sharp end of a long beskad stopped just shy of her helmet. Holding it was the most imposing Mandalorian she had ever laid eyes on. The man wasn’t much taller than she was, but the stance he took, the way that he held his body and his weapon would have been enough for her to know that he was a formidable fighter. On top of that, he was covered head to toe in the beskar armor more pure and pristine than she knew to exist. The sword in his gloved hand was just the first that she noticed of what she now realized were many weapons- a blaster, spear, and vibroblade all visible, plus whatever devices he had installed on his vambraces.  _ And that’s just what I can see. _ A Mandalorian like this one was liable to have at least four more weapons concealed.  _ A Mando like this  _ **_is_ ** _ a weapon _ . 

The Marshal and the the older man that had been waiting with her- as bait, Navina realized too late- stepped up behind the Mandalorian, the woman speaking. “You got this from here, Mando? I’m gonna go check out what her  _ friend  _ is up to inside.” Navina scowled at the woman who gave her a condescending look before the man answered. 

“Sure. I can take care of her. Take Karga with you.” He hadn’t turned away from Navina, and he hadn’t lowered his weapon. His voice, though modulated through his helmet, sounded calm and even, and she knew that while it likely offered some of his prey a false sense of comfort, she knew better. The Marshal and the other man didn’t hesitate to do as he said, the woman telling him to call for her if she needed him.  _ He won’t _ , Navina fumed at her retreating figure. 

Neither of them said anything until the other two were out of sight, and all Navina could do was hope that Firo was running through the base at top speed.  _ He just needs to get off of the pad, get out of here and then he’s-  _

“Are you a Mandalorian?” He asked the question as he slid the end of his blade up onto the curve of the armor on her left shoulder, the beskar sword scraping a long divot into the top layer of painted durasteel with a sharp  _ shing _ . 

She let her eyes flick down to where the blade sat without moving her head, hands still in front of her.  _ Stall. Give Firo more time to get out. _ The blade had only cut through the outer shell of her pauldron, but he had barely used any force at all and she knew she had to answer carefully because one wrong word or uncalculated move would cost her more than the time needed to repair her armor.  _ He’ll chop my arm clean off with that thing _ . “That depends on who you ask,” she raised her eyes back up to where his would be if she could see them, noticing a sculpted signet in the shape of a mudhorn on his own shoulder piece. 

“I’m asking you,” he answered, tone shedding some of its evenness as with the quick turn of his wrist the blade slipped between her pauldron and flak vest, slicing it off in one fluid motion. “And I want an answer. Are you a Mandalorian? Did you swear the Creed?” 

Loud bangs coming from the landing pad above them told her that Firo was almost home free.  _ Just a few more seconds _ . “I was never given the chance to. My clan was attacked when I was a child.” Honesty seemed the best course of action at this point. Though she was a skilled fighter, Navina knew when she was outmatched and outgunned. 

“Your armor,” he nodded his head in her direction then, the first move he’d made that hadn’t been to slice her pauldron to pieces. “How did you come by it if it wasn’t made for you?” 

“Took the pauldrons and chest piece from a trooper,” she stated, though she knew that was the least of his cares. “These?” she raised her wrists up higher, “these I stole from a back alley trader. You want ‘em? They’re yours.” He nodded again, and she mirrored the gesture, glancing up to the pad as the rumbling sound of thrusters preparing to take off told her that Firo was going to make it out safely.  _ Good. That’s all that… all that matters _ . She slowly pulled the vambraces from her wrists, tossing them at the Mandalorian’s feet. “They’re busted and they don’t fit, so by all means.” 

“Your helmet.” He demanded. 

“Now  _ that  _ I will not be parting with,” she told him, trying to muster up all of the evenness that she could. 

“It looks like pure beskar.” It wasn’t a question. 

“It is. It’s the only piece of pure beskar I own, aside from,” she pointed to her belt with one hand, the other still suspended in the air between them. He nodded his approval for her to pull the kal from the sheath. “Aside from this.” Holding the dagger out for him to see, she brought it slowly up to his beskad and clanged them together, the sound ringing out and making it clear to both of them that both blades were entirely pure. “And I won’t be giving you either of them, Mando.” Sheathing her kal again, she brought that same hand up to her chest, digging under the flimsy armor and pulling out her mother’s mythosaur necklace. “They belonged to my parents, and if you want them you’re going to have to kill me.” 

At the sight of the pendant he lowered his weapon and cocked his head to the side. “The Mythosaur… but what is, why is there…” 

Navina looked down at the pendant in her hand then, the stone visible in its eyes seeming to glow a fierce shade of purple. She sucked in a breath as she brought her other hand up to cover it, thinking that it was just the harsh Nevarro sun that was causing it to shine more brightly than it ever had before. But when shaded by her other palm the purple light seemed only to shine brighter. “It’s never… it’s never done that before, never so…” 

Just then a comm link clicked in the Mandalorian’s pocket, and he pulled it out, pressing the button on the side. “Cara,” he spoke the woman’s name. 

“The other one got away with a ship and a few speeders. You good down there?” 

Navina felt a fleeting relief as she heard that Firo was off the base and that he’d even managed to make it profitable for himself. The Mandalorian stared at her for long seconds before answering, holding the communicator in his fist close to his helmet. “I’m taking this one back with me.” With that, he switched off the communicator and put it back in his pocket, unhooking a set of binders from his hip. “I can put these on you and you can follow me,” he offered, “Or,” he looked down at the blaster on his hip. “I can set that to stun and-” 

Navina shoved her wrists in his direction. “Clap ‘em on then,” she sighed and he did, securing them so smoothly she was sure he’d done it hundreds of times at least. “Where uh… where are we going?” 

Sheathing his sword on his belt, he looked straight at her and answered. “No questions.” He bent down and picked up the discarded vambraces, then started walking in the opposite direction. When she didn’t follow right away, he reached for his blaster. “I’m not sure when the last time I used the stun setting was,” he said, hand poised over his weapon. “Not sure if it still works.” Looking back over his shoulder at her, he finished the threat. “Don’t make me test it on you.” 

With that he started walking again, Navina following closely behind in silence. 

_ Yup. Plans are  _ **_not_ ** _ my thing.  _


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Mandalorian has some questions for the thief he apprehended on Nevarro. But when extenuating circumstances force them to work together, he starts to see that there might be more to her than the common criminal that he first thought.

_ The Promise  _

Night fell quickly on Nevarro, the planet plunging into darkness as soon as the sun began to sink beneath the horizon. With no moon the only celestial light came from the stars, but the amount of ash in the atmosphere made it difficult for the silver pinpricks to penetrate to the ground level. By the time the Mandalorian and his captive reached the  _ Promise _ , the only natural light was coming from the orange glow of the lava rivers in the distance, snaking through the crusty, black volcanic surface. Along the bank of the nearest molten stream, a reptavian’s wings spread wide as it rose from a craggy cluster of porous rock.  _ If there’s one there are more. _ He knew from experience that the beasts hunted in flocks. Its screech ripped across the empty landscape, and before he could count to three the call was answered by two more shrieks.  _ We need to get inside.  _

“ _ Osi'kyr! _ ” The woman behind him hissed under her breath as she stumbled over her feet at the sound of the reptavians. “What the kriff was that?!” 

The Mandalorian stopped walking as she spoke, turning his head so that his chin was in line with his right shoulder.  _ She just... That was- _ Though he was still learning the language himself, he recognized the Mando’a word immediately. Her pronunciation was clear and correct, the tricky syllables rolling off her tongue with the comfort and confidence of a fluent speaker. He had never heard the language used outside of the covert though, and certainly not by an individual who had not sworn the Creed.  _ She said she wasn’t given the chance to.  _ Each new thing he learned about her only brought up more questions. 

The woman stepped next to him before he could swivel his head back around and he was met with her sharp gray eyes, visible through the smashed visor of her helmet. After meeting Bo-Katan and the Nite Owls he had stopped trying to understand the way that other Mandalorians interpreted  _ The Way _ . He knew that not all of his people adhered to the more rigid beliefs and traditions that he did, and that most were far more free when it came to removing their helmets and showing their faces.  _ But this is… different.  _ He narrowed his own hidden eyes, focusing on the way that the shattered remains of her visor hung like stalactites across her field of vision.  _ That was done deliberately… but why?  _

Beyond the language and the armor, there was also the Mythosaur pendant and the short dagger she had shown him. The pendant itself wasn’t unusual. He had seen plenty of them in his lifetime and had owned one once. Although he no longer wore it, the Mandalorian would always remember how heavy the thing felt the first time it was draped around his neck, how determined he was to carry the weight even as a small child. Each time he held it in his palm or felt it pressed to his skin beneath his armor he was reminded of the words that the man who had given it to him had sworn. To protect him and raise him as a warrior, as his own. 

He hadn’t sworn any vows on the day he’d thrust the necklace into Cara’s hand with the instructions to deliver Grogu to the covert. He didn’t have the time or the strength. Convinced that he wouldn’t make it out of the fray alive, he only wanted the child to be taken care of.  _ And to have my name. To know that I wanted him to be safe.  _ He wondered if Grogu felt the pendant’s weight around his tiny shoulders and understood what it meant.  _ I’ll always be there for you, kid. I promise _ . 

But no matter what the kid thought when he clutched the pendant in his small hands, the fact remained that it looked like every other one he’d seen before. The sleek silver beskar was sculpted into the skull and tusks of the fabled creature, and there were no added embellishments or adornments. It wasn’t jewelry, it was heritage, and that is what set the one this woman wore apart. At the heart of hers was a bright purple stone visible through the carved eyes that seemed to emit light.  _ Or was it energy?  _ Something about the stone and the way it glowed reminded him of the weapons he’d seen Ashoka use, or the blade wielded by the Jedi that came to retrieve Grogu from the Mandalorian’s care on Gideon’s light cruiser. It reminded him of the Darksaber in the way that it seemed to crackle with power.  _ So why is it in her necklace? _

The kal, too, had been unique. Like the beskad the Armorer had given him, it was an ancient weapon, one not typically carried by modern Mandalorians in favor of more advanced blades, blasters and rifles. Though it was short the blade was lethal, designed to move swiftly through the air and slice accurately into its target. Historically, the kal and beskad were meant to be used together in two-handed combat, and up until extremely recently he had never seen either.  _ What are the odds of- _

The reptavian shrieked again, this time the sound coming from much closer. “ _ Hey _ ,” the woman brought her bound hands up to place them on his arm, the contact jarring him from his thoughts even more than the carnivorous creature’s hunting cries. “Whatever that thing is, it’s-”

The rest of her sentence was drowned out by the whooshing sound of enormous leathery wings flapping just a few paces behind her as one of the beasts swooped low, claws extended and jaw open wide.  _ “Get down! _ ” He saw her eyes widen through the jagged maw of the crack in her visor as he grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her to the ground, falling on top of her to shield her with his body. Razor sharp talons scraped at his shoulder pauldrons as he dove, the beskar doing its job despite the gnashing sounds and the slight pressure he felt as the creature tried to snatch him as its prey. 

Grunting, he rolled off of the woman and onto his back once he was sure that the reptavian had soared up into the air again.  _ Lower the ramp. Get inside _ . Flipping open the panel on his wrist, the Mandalorian pushed a series of buttons to unlock the  _ Promise’s _ pressurized cargo door, the release of air behind him letting him know that it was dropping open.  _ Good _ . He swiveled his head down to the woman as he slammed the panel on his vambrace shut again. “Get in the ship, n-” 

A second winged assailant came screeching in from his left to cut him off, jaws closing around the wrist he had just been operating the locks with and pulling another grunt from him as it tried to thrash him free of his metal casing. He was vaguely aware of his captive scrambling to her feet in his peripheral vision, and once he saw that she was clear he engaged the flamethrower on his opposite wrist, attempting to scorch the creature that was dragging him to his knees. The reptavian wasn’t deterred though, responding by twisting its jaw to damage the vambrace, extinguishing the flames and decommissioning the device. Swearing under his breath, he hurriedly tried to use another weapon, flicking his other wrist down to charge the payload of whistling birds. They hummed as energy coursed through the launcher, but another powerful rush of wind hit him as the first beast turned to swoop back down, and he realized he wouldn’t have time to release the missiles before the creature descended. 

“Don’t move!” The woman’s voice was loud and clear as she called out from somewhere behind him. He froze just as two blaster shots zipped through the air on either side of his helmet, hitting one of the creatures squarely in its broad chest and the other in the soft tissue where the wing joint connected to its body. The first one dropped heavily on the crusty ground, wings curling around its dead carcass as the second gave a piercing painful squeal, spinning in the air before fleeing into the darkness, leaving the Mandalorian panting in a heap. 

He stood, brushing himself off as he turned to face her. Hands still bound, she clutched the blaster that she had holstered to her thigh, the barrel still smoking. Impressed with the accuracy she was able to achieve while restrained, he blinked as she lowered her weapon and stowed it back on her leg. “Nice shooting.” 

She scoffed. “Would have been quicker but I’m a little tied up at the moment.” Sighing, she shifted her weight as he checked to ensure that the reptavian’s bite didn’t penetrate his armor. “Are you...did it get you?” 

Circling his hands around each wrist in turn, he took a few beats to catch his breath and looked up to answer her. “No, the armor held up.” Looking down at the dispatched creature, he recalled the last time that he had an encounter with the venomous predators and how quickly their poison could spread once they sunk their teeth into flesh; how quickly they both could have been killed. “Thank you.” 

The woman shrugged. “Well, you saved me first. So I guess we’re even.” He nodded. “Are you going to tell me what that thing was?” 

“Reptavian,” he answered. “And they’re poisonous, so-”    
  


Her eyes widened. “So what are we still doing out here? There are more of them out there.” As though on command, several high pitched screeches sounded in the distance. 

“Yes,” he agreed, stepping up onto the ramp and walking ahead of her. “There are.” Once they were both inside, he pressed a large white button near the door and the ramp lifted. “We’re safe in here. The  _ Promise _ is reinforced with-”    
  


“Hey,” she lifted her hands as she cut him off. “That’s great and all, I’m glad that those things can’t attack us in here, but, if you could maybe tell me why I’m handcuffed or why you dragged me all the way out here instead of turning me over to the Marshal? That would be  _ swell _ .” 

Her voice sounded different as it bounced off the metal floors and walls of the hold, lighter, more vibrant, and before he could answer her it dawned on him that she was the first passenger to board the  _ Promise  _ who wasn’t sealed inside a frozen slab of carbonite. He’d owned the ship for nearly six months, and not even Cara Dune or Boba had set foot inside of it. Before Grogu had come into his life, he had gone years without a second person seated in the cockpit or sleeping in the crew bunks, but once the child came along he’d traveled with plenty of beings. Without him the Mandalorian had been alone again, until this moment, until this woman and all the questions that surrounded her. Shaking those thoughts from his mind, he flipped a switch to turn lights on inside the dark hull, answering her over his shoulder. “You wanted to be turned over to the Marshal.” It wasn’t a question, it was an observation. As a man who had spent his life tracking and hunting down criminals, he had developed the observation skills necessary to know when his quarries were setting traps of their own. “If I turned you over to her I would have been playing into your hand.” 

She huffed as she dropped her hands in front of her, leaning back into the cool steel wall as he turned to face her again. “So, what? Am I  _ your  _ prisoner now?” Her shoulders tensed then. “Did you run my chain code?”  _ No, but I wonder what I would find _ . 

“I’m not here on Guild business,” he answered, the woman visibly relaxing.  _ She must have a record _ . 

“Well if this is about  _ borrowing  _ that Imperial ship then-” 

“It’s not.”  _ I don’t care about that. _ In truth, the fact that the New Republic had left the abandoned base still sitting there stocked with weapons and vehicles just waiting for some Imperial remnant to come back to reclaim them had made him uneasy. That a common smuggler had made off with a ship and some speeders didn’t bother him.  _ Better in the hands of a thief than the Empire _ . 

“Then why d-”

“Why were you trying to get yourself captured?” Crossing his arms over his chest, the Mandalorian mirrored her stance and leaned back against the ladder to the cockpit. 

He heard her take a deep breath in through her nose, letting it back out slowly as she narrowed her eyes, and he could tell that she was trying to decide how much to say. “I needed some information,” she said finally. “And I heard that the Marshal might have it.” 

_ Information. That makes two of us _ . “And what  _ kind  _ of information were you looking for?” 

There was another pause followed by a second huff of air before she spoke again. “Look, we can talk but can I-” she brought her hands up to the bottom edge of her helmet. “I need to take this thing off, it’s...I don’t usually…” 

He swallowed and tightened his jaw, giving her a nod. “Sure.” 

“Great.” Her fingers curled around the beskar, but she paused before lifting it up. “And don’t think you can take it just because I’m in these kriffing binders. You saw me shoot those flyers, I won’t hesitate to-” 

“I’m not in the business of stealing other people’s family heirlooms.” Though he had agreed with Cara and Karga that this woman was likely an imposter wearing Mandalorian armor, she had since changed his mind. What had started as a beskar reclamation had evolved into something else entirely. _ I just want to talk, see what she knows _ . If he was to be the one to unite the Mandalorians under one banner, he needed to understand all of the branches of The Way, all of the paths that the clans of Madalore could walk. 

She seemed to accept his spoken agreement that her helmet was safe, finally lifting it up and over her head with very little difficulty. It dawned on him that she was likely proficient at a great number of tasks and skills while in binders, that this was far from her first time being detained in this manner.  _ A professional. _ Bending down, she set the helmet on the floor with a dull thunk, then stood, letting out a breath. “There, that’s...more my speed.” 

She tossed her head sending a long, complicated black braid struck through bright blue strands over her shoulder where the pauldron he’d sliced still hung limply by one strap. Her eyes, no longer shaded by the helmet, were far lighter than he had originally thought, more silver than gray, sharp but not hard. She appeared to be the same age as himself, faint creases around her mouth indicative of thirty some years of smirking the way that she was now. The moment that he took her in completely, he was struck with a sensation that was completely unfamiliar to him. 

_ Trust her _ . 

He bristled at his own suggestion, straightening his spine.  _ Why would I?  _ His first instinct had  _ never  _ been to trust, even with Kuiil. Not that he hadn’t learned to, but it was never something that he gave so freely upon first meeting someone. Especially someone who he knew was a liar and a crook. But the thought proved difficult to root out, twisting deeper into his mind until it found the word connected to the feeling. 

_ Ruusaanyc. Trust her.  _

He wasn’t sure why the word came to him in Mando’a or why it made him more inclined to give in, but as soon as it cropped up he felt himself relaxing.  _ That’s… _ He flinched, glad that his expression was still concealed.  _ I don’t… _ The comfort made him uncomfortable and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. Clearing his throat he pushed the trust aside. “What information were you looking for?” 

Her smirk twitched to one side and she let out a small laugh that he wouldn’t have heard had she still been wearing the helmet. “Well, how about those manners, huh?” She laughed again and gestured to herself with her joined hands, a teasing tone to her voice as she continued. “I’m Navina, nice to meet you. Who, may I ask, do I have the pleasure of being detained by this evening?” Her casual nature made his nostrils flare.  _ No, she’s not getting my name _ . “I guess I’ll just keep calling you Mando, then?” She sighed as he remained silent. “Well I was  _ hoping  _ for something a little more personal after saving your skin from those things out there  _ even though _ all you’ve done is destroy my armor and take me prisoner.”

He took a step closer to her, reaching for her hands and grabbing the center of the mechanism that held them together, roughly tugging on it to pull her forward. “You’re  _ not  _ my prisoner.” He unlocked the binders, swinging them around his gloved finger before tucking them back in place in one of the pouches along his belt. “I told you I just want information.” 

He hadn’t stepped back and neither had she, clearly not intimidated by him anymore if she ever was in the first place.  _ That’s… new. _ Just as he wasn’t used to giving his trust freely, others regarding him as they would any other passerby simply never happened. Jutting out her chin as though to prove his point, she challenged his claim. “So if I decided that I didn’t want to give you that information afterall, you’d just...what? Let me go?” 

The Mandalorian shrugged. “Sure. But I doubt the reptavians will cut you the same deal.” 

Navina hummed a laugh. “No, probably not.” Releasing a breath slowly through her nose, she squinted her eyes and widened her smirk. “Alright then, Mando. I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.” 

Realizing that it was better to keep things on civil terms, he agreed. “Fine.” His eyes shifted over to the weapons locker, directly next to where Navina had previously been leaning, and decided that despite what his intuition was trying to tell him, he didn’t trust her enough to be near it, even with it sealed and locked.  _ She’s still a thief, remember? _ “We’ll talk in the cockpit.” He cocked his head at the ladder beside him. “After you.” 

“See? I knew there were manners in there somewhere.” With that she winked at him and started climbing. 

Shaking his head, the Mandalorian followed her up the ladder. He stepped ahead of her to open the sliding door that led to the ship’s controls, entering the cockpit and turning his seat before sinking into it. When she made to sit in the seat directly behind and to the right, he stuck his hand out abruptly. “No.”  _ That’s the kid’s seat. _ Even though it wasn’t. Swallowing the thick lump clogging his throat, he pointed to the passenger seat on the other side. “You can sit there.” 

Ignoring his abrupt aversion to her seating choice, Navina did as he asked and spun the other chair around, sinking into it. She let out a whistle as she looked around, taking in the ship’s multitude of monitors and instruments. “This is nice. Auzituck?” She ran her hand over the switchboard, nodding at her own question. “Yeah, the Wookies know what they’re doing, that’s for sure.” He watched her as she slowly turned back towards him, the light from an overhead screen finding the blue strands of her hair and causing them to shine. “So.” Taking her hands off the panel she’d been inspecting, she dropped them heavily into her lap. “You want to know why I came to Nevarro.” 

“Yes.” He let his shoulders drop and rested one elbow on the armrest of his chair, waiting for her response. 

Navina tapped her left knee three times with her pointer finger before taking a breath. “I heard a rumor in the Core Worlds that I wanted to follow up on.” 

“What kind of rumor?” 

She shook her head from side to side. “Uh uh. I answer one, you answer one.” Raising one eyebrow in an arch, she waited for him to comply with a nod. “What is a Mandalorian doing working with a Marshal?” 

“I don’t.” When it was clear that she wanted more than a two word answer, he sighed. “Marshal Dune is a... friend. She got in touch with me as a courtesy because she saw your armor and figured that you had stolen it.” Navina weighed his answer, tilting her head as though agreeing with Cara’s initial assessment of her. “What kind of rumor?” He asked again. 

“I heard…” She wet her lips and sucked in a breath, letting it out as she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I heard that there used to be a pretty sizable Mandalorian covert here on Nevarro and I,” she released her lip, her brow furrowing. “I’m looking for someone. Someone that might have been there.” 

_ What? Who? _ That nagging feeling was back, telling him to relax, not to assume the worst of her. “There-” he sighed. “There  _ was _ .” 

She winced at the way he said the last word, and he internally recoiled at the idea that she was able to hear the emotion in his tone even with the modulator in his helmet. “What...what happened?” 

He closed his eyes as the image of helmets piled too high flashed in his memory. “The Empire happened.” It wasn’t a lie, it was just the simplest truth. Without giving her time to ask for more on that, he took his turn at interrogating. “Who are you looking for?” 

“My f-” She paused, and for the first time since he’d pointed his beskad in her face he saw a flash of something other than defiance in her silver eyes.  _ What was that? _ “My  _ family _ .”

_ Her family? But she said that _ … She had told him that the helmet and kal she owned had belonged to her parents, and he had assumed that meant that they were no longer alive. Too much time passed in silence, but he wasn’t sure what to say next. It wasn’t the answer that he had been expecting. 

Navina broke the quiet first, her voice slightly smaller than it had been previously, the sound of it pulling his features into a frown. “With my mother I-“ 

She paused and something in the silence between her words and the breath she took made him turn toward her. Her right hand was wrapped tightly around the pendant she had shown him, her chin tilted down and away. 

“I  _ know _ what happened to my mother, I know she’s…” 

She let go of the necklace then, letting it fall against her chest as her shoulders dropped, and he didn’t need her to finish her sentence.  _ She’s gone.  _ He knew what it was to lose a parent. He had lost three. Navina flattened her palm over the Mythosaur hanging from her neck, pressing it against her chest, and he stared down at the blue triangles on his handplates. 

“But my father and the f-“ 

He picked his head back up as she cut herself short, her eyes waiting for him to look her way. Not for the first time he got the feeling that she could see through the visor, even though he knew it was impossible.  _ Was she going to say… _

“My family was caring for a foundling.” She shook her head, one cheek lifting into her eye in a half-hearted smile. “We were split up and I...don’t know what happened to them.” She shrugged and sniffed, blinking her long lashes rapidly to clear away any tears before they could form. “So when I heard that there was a covert here I…” Another shrug. “Wanted to come and...see.” 

_ Grogu. Kid. Foundling. Family. Clan. Aliit _ . 

Each pound of his heart brought a new word to mind.  _ She’s...alone _ . He knew what that was like, to confront loss or uncertainty. But at least he had the rest of the covert. He had Cara and Karga and Fennec and Boba Fett. He had the Armorer and the survivors of the covert here on Nevarro, Paz and the foundlings that he’d rescued. “I’m...sorry.” They seemed insufficient but they were the only words he could conjure. 

She gave him a smirk, or tried to, and shook her head. His eyes were drawn again to the blue strands of her hair as she moved under the lights. “I’ll find them.”  _ I hope you do _ . “Is it my turn?” He nodded. “Okay. Well, since you took those broken vambraces and you wanted my  _ helmet _ , too, I assume that you know an Armorer?” 

“I do. There’s…” He thought about how best to answer, wanting to tell her the truth, wanting to tell her that there was a thriving Mandalorian population on Tattooine,  _ hoping  _ to tell her that perhaps she’d find her family there.  _ But she hasn’t sworn the creed _ . 

She watched him, for what, he wasn’t sure, but she seemed to find it, her tongue flicking out to lick at her lips again. “But they won’t craft armor for me because I’m  _ dar’manda _ , right?” The word made him flinch. Like the Mythosaur pendant, he could feel the weight it carried, too. 

“I… could ask, but-” 

Navina shook her head. “No, it’s alright, Mando.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s just a bantha brained idea I had.” It’s not...I understand, it’s just… “Can I… if I tell you my family name, would you…tell me if you know anything? Or-” 

“Sure.” He didn’t know many of the names of the Mandalorians that had joined the new covert, but he couldn’t see how it could hurt to make this offer. 

“Harsa,” she replied. “My father’s name is Gavil Harsa.” 

The Mandalorian nodded. “When I regroup with my covert I’ll put the word out that his daughter is looking for him.” 

“Thank you, Mando.” She sighed, a look of genuine gratitude and relief coming over her face. 

Before she could say anything else though, a crackling sound came from a pocket in her flak vest as a comm link sparked to life.  _ “Nav? Nav! Can you hear me? Come in, Harsa.”  _

Her eyes grew wide and she gritted her teeth, sucking air through them and reaching under her armor for the device that she must have hidden at the onset of her mission at the base. “Oh. Yeah. That’s…” 

“Your friend?” He crossed his arms as she nodded sheepishly. “You better answer him, then.” 

Her thumb hovered over the button to respond, but she stopped. “If I tell him where I am and he comes to pick me up, are you going to let us go without any trouble? He’s…” She inched towards the front of her seat. “I don’t want him in any trouble.” 

“I told you before, you aren’t my prisoner.” He understood though, that she was trying to protect her friend. She may not have sworn the Creed herself, but he couldn’t help but recall what the Armorer had told him just a few days ago. She spoke the language, upheld the duty to family and, though unconventionally, wore the armor.  _ She is Mandalorian in everything but oath _ . “But you should tell him to wait until morning, when our flying friends are asleep. They’ll attack small ships as they take off.” 

“That’s… yes. I will tell him that.” Her thumb pressed down over the button and she spoke into the receiver. “I’m here, Firo, I read you.” 

Instantly the other man’s voice rang throughout the cockpit.  _ “NAV. Dank Farrik, I was worried.” Nav? _ The Mandalorian looked at the woman across from him. It was short for her name, obviously, but it didn’t seem to fit her.  _ Why do I care about that? _ He blinked.  _ I don’t. _

Rolling her eyes again, Navina smiled. “I’m okay, Firo. Gonna have to sit tight where I am tonight, but,” she glanced up at the Mandalorian. “But I’m safe. I’ll send you coordinates in the morning, alright?” 

_ Safe. Trust. Ruusaanyc.  _

It was easier to give into that word after speaking with her, even just for a short time, but it still made him wonder.  _ Why? _

There were more things that he wanted to know, more questions that he wanted to ask. But just as she ended the communication with her associate, his own communication device began to beep from the third pocket on his belt and he sighed, knowing who it was before he even answered. 

Bo-Katan had arrived to meet with him on Tattooine. And she wouldn’t be happy to find him missing. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a night of asking and answering questions, Navina wakes up aboard The Promise, and it turns out that she and Mando still have some things to discuss before they each go on their own separate ways... things that could possibly help her answer the questions she’s been trying to answer for years- what happened the night she and her family left for Yavin? And... who is the strange man who keeps appearing in her dream? 

_ Concordia  _

“Don’t let go.”

Navina squeezed her hand tightly. Determined to keep her grip, she focused on turning her legs over quickly enough to keep up. “Whatever happens, don’t let go of my hand.” _ I won’t _ . She felt her forehead wrinkle and dug deeper, her own breathing loud in her ears as she pushed herself to run faster. 

Small twigs and saplings snapped under her boots as she raced through the darkness. She couldn’t see the forest floor, the thick canopy of trees blocking out any light from the stars. “It’s even darker now than it used to be.” It was something her parents would say, telling her of a time when the lush moon had been all but stripped of its natural resources, giant quarries carved into the ground so that beskar could be excavated. But she was far too young to remember that. Nights on Concordia had always been pitch black for her. 

She wondered if she’d be able to see the stars in their new home, or if there would be tall trees there, too. 

Before she could get carried away with thoughts of silver constellations though, a column of bright amethyst light ignited a few paces ahead of them.  _ What is that? _ She gasped, her eyes growing wide as her mother came to an abrupt halt, the woman shoving her daughter roughly behind herself, gloved fingers still clamped around her hand. 

“Don’t let go, Ina’ika, and don’t be afraid.” _ I won’t. I’m...I’m not _ . Her free arm curled around her mother’s thigh, her palm resting against the smooth, cool plate of armor there. Even at six years old she knew that fear was not part of The Way. 

“Step aside and let us pass,” her father’s voice was stern and as she peered around her mother’s hip, she was not surprised to see that he had drawn his blaster, the weapon pointed in the direction of the purple light. He used another word then, one she had never heard, to refer to the man holding the glowing object that she realized was some type of sword.  _ Jedi _ . 

“I’m afraid I cannot do that.” The stranger had a deep, clear voice, but despite his refusal to comply with her father’s request, Navina could tell that the man was not interested in hurting them. She saw his dark brown eyes and the calm in them as he lowered the sword. “I’ve been looking for someone I can trust, and I’ve just found them.” There was no breeze, the night air still and silent in the thick forest, but she saw the man’s long brown robes ripple around his legs as he took a step closer.

“And why is that?” Her father challenged, stepping back to close the distance between himself and his wife and daughter. “Why would a Jedi trust a Mandalorian?”  _ That word again _ . “Our kind have been enemies for-” 

“Our kind have  _ both  _ been blinded by the Republic. Now I’m afraid we are each other’s only hope. I’ve been watching you, Gavil Harsa, and I know I am speaking to a man of honor.” 

Her mother whipped her own blaster from its holster on her thigh, and she heard her father swear under his breath. “How do you know my name? What do you mean you’ve been  _ watching  _ me?” He brandished his blaster but the stranger didn’t flinch, the luminous violet weapon still held at the man’s side.

“There’s no time for that now.” The stranger’s eyes narrowed slightly, a sense of urgency entering his tone that wasn’t there before, hinting at a coming storm. “There is no one in the Order that I can trust to do what is necessary to ensure its survival, just as you,” he stepped closer, the hem of his robes fluttering almost unnaturally again, as though he moved through space differently than others. “You cannot rely on your rulers to choose the right path for the preservation of your people.” He nodded towards Navina and her mother. “That’s why you’re leaving with your family, isn’t it?” Navina felt the man’s eyes fall on her, lingering for a moment before they seemed to lighten. “You want to give your daughter a chance to change things for the future.” He blinked and returned his gaze to her father’s visor. She wondered if  _ Jedi  _ meant that the man could see her father’s eyes. 

Silence stretched for long seconds, only the sounds of her parents’ breathing and her own loud heartbeat in her ears filling the darkness that surrounded the stranger’s glowing sword. Finally, her father spoke again. “What is it you want from us?” 

“Nothing that you wouldn’t do freely, according to your own code,” the man stated. He gestured calmly with his free hand, pointing at his robes to indicate that he was going to reach into them. Navina felt her mother’s weight shift and saw the barrel of her father’s blaster drop slightly as the man pulled out a small bundle. She couldn’t see it clearly, the man holding the thing at chest height, but she could tell that whatever it was, it was  _ moving _ . “You’ll care for it, until the Order is safe.” It wasn’t a question, nor did the man give her father time to respond before depositing the bundle in his arms, forcing him to quickly holster his weapon. 

“ _ Keera,  _ its… _ ” _

But her mother was busy receiving another, smaller bundle from the man. “This,” he held the item out, waiting as the woman decided to relinquish her weapon or her child’s hand. Navina felt her fingers go numb as her mother reluctantly slipped her blaster back into place. “This  _ must  _ be kept safe, too.” Though the thing was loosely wrapped in dark fabric, Navina thought she saw a faint glow emanating from it. By the time her mother had brought it down to tuck into her pocket though, it had gone dull, if it had been shining in the first place. 

“I don’t understand.” Her father had yet to look up from the bundle in his arms. If it had been daylight, Navina could have seen the thing’s reflection in her father’s shiny beskar helmet, but even with the light cast by the stranger’s sword it was too dark for that. “Why have you chosen us?”

“Our enemies think that we are enemies,” the man answered, placing his hand on her father’s armored shoulder. “But perhaps more importantly, so do our allies.” 

Navina released her hold on her mother’s leg, inching closer to where her father stood.  _ I just want to see _ … 

But sudden shouts accompanied by heavy footfalls from the darkness that they had just run through caused her to whip her head around so quickly that her braids smacked the sides of her face. “Gavil,” her mother hissed, “they’re coming.”    
  


With that, the man stepped past the Mandalorian family, lifting his blade. “Go!” He turned his head so that his chin was parallel with his shoulder, the color of his sword darkening a shade but somehow managing to glow even brighter. “I’ll take care of them, but you must go. Now.” 

Navina watched as her father nodded. “This is the Way.” The stranger nodded back, and then as abruptly as his weapon had ignited it went dark, plunging the world into blackness again. 

“Navina!” Her name seemed to be coming from all sides then, and she couldn’t tell which way to turn. “Navina, look at me!” I can’t! I can’t see...anything! She knew she had to run but she didn’t know where, and she realized that she was no longer holding her mother’s hand.  _ No! I didn’t let go! I didn’t _ -

“ _ Navina _ ?” 

Another voice, one less familiar but not threatening, echoed from above her, and as she heard her name again she felt as though she were being lifted out of the darkness.  _ Who...who is..? _

Another flash of purple light, brighter than anything she’d just seen burned through her mind then, and in it she saw a combination of images she couldn’t explain: a dagger, her name carved into it- a sculpted symbol resembling a horned creature- a circular tower, rising above a sea of sand- the little one, smiling at her while he splashed in the stream- another symbol, this one scratched and painted, resembling an owl on blue armor- her own gloved hand, shaking and slick with red. She gasped as the voice called her again, pulling her through the purple light and out of the torrent of images. 

\-- -- -- -- -- 

_ The Promise _

“ _ Hey _ ...Navina?”

A pair of strong hands landed on her biceps, leather clad fingers squeezing with quick, firm pressure. She inhaled sharply through her nose as her eyes opened wide, chest heaving as she was met with the tinted visor of the Mandalorian’s sleek helmet. Glancing down at her right hand, she noticed that it was curled around the armrest of the co-pilot seat, the skin around her knuckles straining from her vicelike grip. 

_ Whatever happens, don’t let go of my hand.  _

Her mother’s voice still echoed in her ear as she released the armrest. _ It was a dream. I… _ She took a shaking breath, still staring at her hand.  _ But I don’t remember any of that. How- _

She heard her name again, the modulator in the man’s helmet suddenly clicking to her as the unfamiliar voice that had pulled her from the dream. He flexed his fingers around her arms again, and she was suddenly aware that he was still holding her, suddenly aware of the way the worn material felt against her skin.  _ Oh. He...I…that feels… _ Her eyes moved from her own hand to his left one, the thumb pressed into the skin just below the short sleeve of her shirt. 

He seemed to realize in the same moment that she had that he was still touching her, and he pulled both hands back immediately. “I’m… sorry. I,” he sat back in his seat and cleared his throat. “You were… it sounded like you were dreaming and-” 

Navina sat up, blinking rapidly as reality came hurtling back to her, the dark cockpit illuminated only by the switchboard lights and what little starlight came through the glass.  _ I’m on Nevarro...on a ship, I’m waiting for Firo and… _ She turned and again was met with dark, T- shaped visor, the only indication of where the man beneath the helmet’s eyes were.  _ And I had a dream that… _ She realized she must have been speaking or at least making some kind of sound, based on what he had said and how he had been clutching her arms.  _ Dank farrick, that’s kriffing embarrassing _ . “I’m sorry, I… did I wake you? I was-” 

“No.” He gave a minute shake of his head and crossed his arms. “I wasn’t asleep.” 

_ Oh _ . She swallowed, bringing one hand up to push a stray strand of her hair behind her ear, grateful for how dark it was in the cockpit, her cheeks warm and likely flushed with color. _ He can probably see just fine through that thing though _ . She groaned internally. “Then, I’m sorry that I-” 

“Don’t be, it’s...” He turned his chair away from her, towards the controls as he spoke, almost as though he were averting his eyes. “I  _ understand _ .” 

He began busying himself with twisting dials and checking gauges, and though she wasn’t sure what he was doing, she got the distinct feeling that it was nothing that needed to be done that moment. _ He understands? Does that mean…  _ She opened and closed her hand, turning it over to reveal an indent from how tightly she’d been holding onto the armrest. She wondered if when he  _ did  _ sleep, he was plagued with dreams he couldn’t make sense of, either, filled with memories he didn’t know he had. 

_ Don’t let go, Ina’ika, and don’t be afraid. _

Running her opposite thumb over her palm, she shivered.  _ Why is all of this happening now? _ Dreams of the night her family left Concordia weren’t uncommon. Neither were ones of the day her family was attacked, or the night her mother was killed. But none of them  _ had  _ ever been so detailed, felt so real. Never had she recalled so much of the conversation that her father had with the stranger that she now realized had enabled their getaway.  _ But what was it that he… what did he give my parents? Those bundles…  _

She was pulled from her thoughts as the Mandalorian spoke her name again. “Your pendant, it’s…” He had turned to face her again, his upper body leaning away from the backrest, one elbow on his knee as he pointed at the Mythosaur around neck. 

Looking down at where the necklace lay against her chest she sucked in a breath, her eyes growing wide. It was  _ glowing  _ again, bright amethyst light, the same brilliant shade as the mysterious man’s sword in her dream, pouring from the carved eye sockets of the mythic creature. Grabbing it, she pulled the black cord over her head so that she could look at it properly, something clicking in her brain and causing her heart rate to race.  _ The small bundle that he gave my mother… what if… _ She swallowed, inspecting the necklace more closely than she ever had before.  _ What if it  _ **_was_ ** _ glowing? What if _ … The gears that clicked ground to a staggering halt as the Mandalorian spoke again. 

“That’s the second time it’s done that.” His tone could have come across as accusatory, but even though she had only spent a few hours with the man- and most of them asleep at that, though she had no recollection of actually  _ falling  _ asleep, vaguely recalling the man stepping out of the cockpit to take a holo call and having no memory of him returning- she knew that he was just curious. Almost voraciously so. “The only  _ thing  _ I’ve ever seen like it was…”  _ Was what? _ But he didn’t finish, just changing the angle of his head. “Why does it do that?” 

“I...I’m not sure, I…” she sighed, eye returning to the object in her hand after they’d briefly flicked up at the man while he spoke. “I think… this stone that’s-” she gasped as her finger found a crevice in the metal at the back of the skull.  _ Is that a...does it open? _ She had never noticed it before, but as she slid her fingernail into the small crack in the metal, trying to pry it up but getting nowhere. “There’s a...a seam here, look.” She held the pendant out for him, the man hesitating to reach for it, and she realized that she was likely violating some ancient tenet of The Way by thrusting her pendant into the hand of someone outside of her clan.  _ I don’t have a clan, so… _ “Take it, it’s okay.” 

She moved it closer, a few more seconds passing before his gloved palm appeared beneath her hand, ready for her to drop it into his grasp. He brought it up in front of his face, his free hand tapping a hidden control on the side of his helmet and she heard a mechanical whir, as though a lens was focusing. He’s using a magnifier. She thought of her own helmet-  _ my mother’s helmet _ \- down in the cargo hold, it’s smashed visor completely useless for things like this.  _ I might have noticed this years ago if I had-  _

“Yes,” he said, the lens honing in again. “I see it. But it… it’s sealed shut. Soldered.” He looked up at her then, the hand controlling the magnifier falling back to his lap. 

“To keep it safe,” she muttered, extending her hand out to him to take it back. He gave it over without pause. 

“What?” 

Donning the necklace again, she tucked it under her armor. “Something I…” She pressed her hand flat against her chest plate until she felt the Mythosaur’s tusks dig gently into the skin over her sternum. “Something I just remembered in my dream…something someone needed my mother to keep safe. It,” dropping her hand, she chewed her bottom lip.  _ How much do I tell him? _ “Mando, I think it...I think the man who gave this to my mother was a...I think he was a-” 

“A Jedi?” He asked the question as though it wasn’t preposterous. 

“H-how did you...Have you- do you  _ know  _ any-” 

“Yes. I… the way that the stone  _ glows _ , it looks like the weapons I’ve seen the Jedi use. It’s-” he took a breath and she got the feeling that like she had been doing since she met him, he was weighing what he wanted to say in his mind against what he felt comfortable sharing with her. “It’s a different color than the ones I’ve seen but they… they call them lightsabers but it’s not...it’s not light it’s more like-”

“Like energy?” Navina’s mouth had gone dry as she listened to him speak about these Jedi warriors and their laserlike swords as though he were present in her dream with her. 

“Yes.” He didn’t elaborate, and she took that to mean that he had reached the limit of what he felt comfortable sharing in regards to this topic. _ If he knows about lightsabers though _ , she pressed her lips together,  _ I wonder what he knows about the Darksaber _ . He didn’t give her the chance to ask though, shifting the conversation. “I was told that the Jedi were the sworn enemy of Mandalore but I...I’m not sure that’s still true.” 

_ Our kind have both been blinded by the Republic. Now I’m afraid we are each other’s only hope.  _

“No,” she shook her head. “No, I don’t think it is.”  _ I’m not sure if it’s ever been true _ . 

As quickly as night fell over the volcanic plains of Nevarro, morning swept through like a brushfire, chasing the darkness away with searing sunlight. Sunrises and sunsets took their time on other planets, on moons like Yavin 4 and Concordia, but it seemed here that the star was eager to begin burning, the cockpit filling with morning light and acting like a natural end point to the night of honesty the two Mandalorians had shared. 

Clearing his throat with a short grunting sound, the Mandalorian gestured to the door that led out of the control area to where the ladder for access to the cargo hold was waiting. “It’s safe for you to contact your friend now. The reptavians are nocturnal, so they won’t be a problem anymore.” 

_ Oh. Alright.  _ It shouldn’t have been as disappointing as it felt to know that he was as eager to be rid of her as the sun seemed to be to scorch the cracked ground, but she barely hid a wince as she nodded, digging the comm link out from the inner pocket sewn into her shirt collar. Making quick contact with Firo, she relayed the coordinates to him, and he let her know that he would be there shortly. The Mandalorian had heard the whole conversation, so she didn’t need to tell him that she would be out of his hair soon. Once she had finished her call with Firo, she tucked the comm away and followed him out of the cockpit. _ Of course. He got what he came here for… the beskar...some information. What more would he _ -

He was waiting for her at the bottom of the ladder. “Can I…” She looked over her shoulder at him as she descended the last three rungs, but he waited to continue until her bootsoles thunked dully against the metal flooring, and she turned completely. “There’s more that I’d like to... _ talk _ with you about.”  _ There is?  _ “But I’m supposed to be meeting with someone, and I’m already going to be late because I made this stop so I can’t stay any longer but… I’ll be back on Nevarro in three weeks if you-”

“That depends, Mando.” She cocked her head to the side and allowed a smirk to lift her cheek. “Is your Marshal friend going to charge me with anything? Because I’m not sure my record can take another hit like that.” 

She thought she heard a sound that could almost be misconstrued as a chuckle, the man’s helmet dipping slightly before he answered. “I think I can talk her into letting you off this time.” 

Navina bent down to retrieve her helmet from the ground, right where she’d left it the night before. “Well then, I guess I’ll see you in three weeks.” 

She turned it upside down and bent down again, this time picking up the shoulder pauldrons she had been wearing the night before- one now bearing slight damage from the enthusiastic way he had greeted her- and stuck them inside the beskar helmet.  _ These are going to need some repair _ . Again she found herself wishing that she could be as lucky as he was, able to freely visit an Armorer for repairs, upgrades to her gear. But she blinked those thoughts away, choosing instead to recall the things her father had taught her all those years ago, about repairing her own armor.  _ It will be fine _ . 

He didn’t say anything else until a few minutes later they heard the tell-tale sound of a speeder zipping across the landscape. “Sounds like your ride is here.” 

He pressed a large button near the door panel, the ramp lowering just as Firo pulled up on one of the stolen speeders, the Imperial crest that had been painted onto the front of it already scratched off. “Yup,” she shifted her helmet full of broken armor into her left arm as she placed the other hand on her hip, “that’s him.” 

Navina smiled to herself. _ Firo wouldn’t be caught dead on that thing if it still had their symbol _ . She couldn’t be sure, but she had a feeling that the Mandalorian had noticed the facelift Firo had given the bike, too. He seemed like a man who appreciated things like that. 

“Nav!” He waved at her from under a comically large pair of goggles, his long hair whipping around his face at odd angles from the wind and the straps that held the eye gear in place. “Came to get you in style!” He took one hand off the throttle as he slowed the speeder down in front of the Mandalorian’s ship.  _ The Promise _ , Navina reminded herself, wanting to commit the ship’s name to memory. “What do you think of this beaut, huh?” Firo flourished his hand dramatically over the body of the speeder before hopping off, landing perfectly on his feet. 

Navina laughed to herself, a sudden thought taking hold-  _ Have we really been through that many strange things together that he really has nothing to say about picking me up in the middle of nowhere after spending the night alone with a Mandalorian who technically took me prisoner? _ “She’s great, Firo. I hope you have another pair of goggles.” 

Digging in a small bag that was attached to the side of the speeder, he pulled another, thankfully smaller pair of goggles out and tossed them to her, Navina catching them with the hand she had on her hip, single handedly sliding them onto her forehead. “Sharp look, Harsa.” She rolled her eyes at him and he snickered as she turned to face the Mandalorian, the man still standing midway up the ramp. 

“Thank you again,” he caught her off guard as he spoke, and she felt her eyebrows jump before she could try to control her surprise. “For your help with the reptavians last night, I mean.” He gestured with one gloved hand at the crumpled carcass of the one she had killed. “You...fought well.” 

Coming from a man like him those words felt like the greatest compliment one could hope to receive. “Of course,” she shrugged. “I wasn’t going to let it eat us both.” She smirked at him, remembering that he had tried to get her to go inside the ship before she’d shot the beasts.  _ Good thing I didn’t listen _ . 

He made that same faint chuckling sound again, the laugh seeming unsure of itself in this context, and then almost as though to prove that it was, he shifted his tone back to a more serious one, giving her a time and exact location for their meeting. 

Navina recorded the coordinates he gave her on the comm device, confirming again that she would be there. Three weeks for questions to brew in both of their brains suddenly seemed far too long, but she reminded herself that there were plenty of ways to pass that time, not the least of which was finding someone to take the stolen speeders off of hers and Firo’s hands. They’d had a string of low paying jobs here and there, so she looked forward to something a little more lucrative. Need to at least be able to afford fuel to get back here in three weeks. “Have a safe trip, Mando.” She gave him one last smile, the man simply nodding before leaving her with four simple words. 

“This is the Way.” 

Before she could say anything else, the man had vanished up into the ship, the ramp closing behind him, leaving her staring at the hull.  _ This is the Way. _ She inhaled deeply, shoulders lifting as her chest expanded, and then let the air out slowly, turning back towards Firo. “So,” she walked towards the speeder, Firo climbing back on as she got close so that she could hop on behind him. “I met a Mandalorian last night...” 

Firo laughed as he revved the throttle to spark the speeder’s engine back up. “Did you now? You don’t say.” 

Navina settled her helmet in her lap, securing her arms around Firo’s waist. “C’mon, let’s get back to  _ The Flare _ and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  
With that they took off, leaving  _ The Promise _ in their wake as they streaked off across the scorched terrain

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @the-blind-assassin-12


End file.
